


the proper binge

by glitteration



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Begging, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Edging, F/M, HAPPY ENDINGS FOR EVERYBODY, In Which Nothing is On Fire But Foodstuffs, Light Dom/sub, Mommy Kink, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Pegging, Praise Kink, Threesome - F/M/M, pun intended, restaurant AU, this is extra even for me, trope-y af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9713669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: "Really, help yourself. I have some smoked salmon about to go off and end up a waste, if you're looking for something else to consume by the fistful. Jackson, what is it?""Murphy touched Raven's mother dough and now she's going to kill him.""...Clarke, honey, I'll talk to you later."( aka, Kellabby does Kitchen Confidential. )





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victorias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorias/gifts).



> For the most delightful of Brottopi, a creature known for wit & charm & perfect eyeliner.
> 
> Horrible nicknames aside, I love you, starfish, and Happy Galentine's day.

 

> **You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.**

> **_— Anthony Bourdain_ **
> 
>  

A career as a chef had never been on the books. The Griffins turned out doctors, at least one each in the last five generations and Abby was no different. She loved it, but after Jake's death Abby couldn't stand the hospital; the thought of tasting antiseptic and copper and latex with each indrawn breath made her sweat. Time stretched out impossibly long, and she dreamed about being stalked through empty corridors only to wake each morning with another reason to tender her resignation.

Time ceased its sap-like flow in fits and starts once she did, and soon Abby realized the house was too big to spend much time alone without feeling like an aging aunt in a regency novel. Cooking classes were meant to be a stopgap distraction, something to do before she picked up Clarke from school, but the renewed need for focus and steady hands and rush of seeing the fruits of her labor put to tangible effect felt right from the first moment, like a pair of shoes already stretched out, waiting for her feet to slip inside.

After a year, she sold the house for something smaller with a better kitchen and equipment to match and threw herself into food as thoroughly as she had medicine. She and Clarke navigated how to be a family without Jake's soothing presence as a buffer between their sharper personalities in between discovering new dishes and ingredients, food acting as bridge and bonding experience and sacrament all in one, drawing them back together into the same orbit. By the time Clarke turned sixteen it was an established tradition: Clarke and Wells and Abby, gathered around her table nightly to sample that day's experiments, Wells bringing the leftovers home to Thelonious.

It was a hobby until it wasn't. Callie knew a guy who knew another guy who knew someone else with a catering company in need of a chef until his partner returned from maternity leave; in other words, someone desperate enough to rely on the word of a friend of a friend and an audition.

Alpha was a small company, but more than enough to hook her. After that job ended Abby sought out another, then another, and another, until she found her way into the barely-controlled chaos of a proper kitchen in the weeds and the piece of her that thrived amid the hospital's demanding pace roared back from dormancy.

Thelonious bought Arkadia a year and a half after Clarke left for the dorms. His offer to install her as head chef was entirely nepotistic; no other kitchen would do it, not with her short resume and lack of culinary degree to fall back on. Abby's guilt at accepting it only lasted for the briefest of moments, fading in the glare of overhead lights bouncing off polished steel.

He gave her the keys to the kingdom and run of the kitchen and Abby took full advantage, starting with her sous. Jackson worked for Alpha all those years ago as her very first assistant and the last she'd ever needed; when she left a company and moved to the next so did Jackson, until the day she'd turned to working the line and they'd reluctantly parted ways. Even after all this time, he'd said yes before she could complete the offer.

With Jackson came Harper, with her bright smile and competent air at the grill. Harper brought Monty and the desserts he'd made popular already at Stationed, a little farm-to-table set up on the outskirts of town. Monty brought Miller in from the struggling sushi restaurant two towns over and Raven from Nygel's, a cafe known for its amazing house-made bread and felonious owner. Raven brought Monroe, a stone-faced waitress who made the best floor captain Abby could have asked for, and though Abby wouldn't know it until Thelonious hired him Monroe brought Bellamy.

Bellamy was the final element of that first little family. Nights around her table had kindled an interest in cooking in him, she knew that much, but he hadn't let on how high the fire had grown until he submitted his resume. His addition brought them together in a way only a perfect ingredient could, weaving his way into the fabric of the kitchen and acting as Jackson's unofficial second so effortlessly Abby made it official.

Arkadia isn't the French Laundry, but it's hers. It's _home_.

 

* * *

 

There was a beautiful rhythm to early morning prep, Abby reflected. No customers, no staff, just the coffee machine and the sounds Bellamy made puttering around outside, grabbing a cigarette and giving her as much quiet as possible before the day starts in full.

Murphy had no such restraint. "The new manager's a dick." He tossed his bag in front of their small bank of lockers, apparently having brought his entire collection of hammers to work.

Bellamy threw his own down after, making a slightly quieter unholy racket before he darted a guilty look at Abby. "Management's always a dick, Murphy."

"No, this one's special. I was lowkey hyped when Shumway got kicked to the curb, but Kane's already twice the fascist he was. He's got caps-o Opinions, and in case I need to remind you, I left my last kitchen when management pulled some bullshit over uniform violations."

"Uh- _huh_." Bellamy smirked and held up one hand. "First guy on the line." He raised his left hand, rocking it tauntingly back and forth below the right. "Commis who got his job because his roommate vouched for him. Which one's on top?"

"Shut up. You were off the morning he came in, so between the two of us I'm the one who's _met_ the guy, and I say he's the worst kind of pencil-pusher."

Abby stifled a sigh at the conversation but nodded in affirmation when Murphy cast wounded eyes her way, seeking affirmation of the charges. "Don't let him hear you talking like that, or I'll have to decide exactly how much leverage I want to expend getting my most recent hire un-fired on the spot."

Bellamy whistled. "That bad, huh?"

She passed a hand over her eyes, remembering their introduction. "That bad." Marcus Kane had entered her kitchen, sniffed judgmentally, expressed a dim view of her idea of orderly paperwork, winced at Raven's choice in music, turned down an offer of Jackson's coffee, and that had all been before the words 'menu changes' left his mouth. "Murphy, don't mouth off around him. I mean it."

"Yeah, fine."

"Murphy."

"I said fine."

" _Murphy_." Bellamy rapped his knuckles against his locker, dark eyes serious. "She means it."

"Jesus." Shifting uncomfortably, Murphy ran a hand through his hair before sweeping it all back in a tiny pigtail, sprouting directly from the top of his head. "I promise, I won't pick a fight with Jaha's new corporate drone. Happy?"

"I'll be happier when you stop drinking all my beer."

Abby watched as Bellamy swept Murphy into a headlock, mussing his hair and sending the rubber band holding it up pinging off into God knows where, Murphy flailing against his grip and finally shoving him off and into the bank with a muted thump.

" _Dick_." He tied his hair back again, upper lip curled back in an affected sneer. "I don't drink hipster bullshit, so you must be thinking of someone else."

"Says the man who still willingly drinks PBR."

Their bickering continued as they each drifted to their own routines, Murphy's hands steady on the cutting board even as he and Bellamy trade barbs about who locked whom out and who erased the DVR in a fit of pique. Jackson arrived next, and then Raven, with the rest of the staff trickling in closer to on time.

With Jackson to oversee the action in her absence, Abby ducked into the kitchen to call Clarke.

"Hey, honey." Abby hitched her hip up on the corner of her desk, smile blossoming at Clarke's enthusiastic greeting.

"Hey, mom!"

"Hi, Abby!" Octavia's voice barely sounded quieter than Clarke's; she must have stolen the phone, or crowded close enough they can share it. "Is my nerd brother there?"

"It's almost ten, he's probably already working." Clarke's voice came through louder again, and Abby's grin grew wider. Clarke's investment in the restaurant never stopped feeling like a personal victory, not when she can still intimately recall the distance they'd felt just after the funeral.

"Clarke's right, I just wanted to take a minute to call and say hi before I'm off the grid for a while. Do you need me to tell him anything, Octavia?"

"Just that he's a total nerd. And hi, I guess." Her voice slowly faded as she wandered off, duty done.

"Can we come by for dinner tonight?" Clarke brought the conversation back to practicalities, and the echo of her own brisk tone from across the line made her chest momentarily tight with affection. "I know it's not Wednesday, but I'm sick of going to the hall to get overcooked chicken. This is your fault for spoiling me and making me expect all food to taste like yours, I want you to know that."

"It's all a part of my evil plan to keep my beloved daughter coming home to do more than a few loads of laundry." Jackson knocked on the door, and Abby glanced at the clock and winced. "I've got to go soon but of course you can, sweetheart. You know you're both welcome whenever you want to come by."

"Oh good, because we're here now and we already finished that blueberry salad in the fridge." Octavia cackled in the background and Clarke echoed her. "What? I had laundry to do."

"Help yourself, why don't you." Jackson knocked again, more frantically this time, and Abby rose to open it. "Really, help yourself. I have some smoked salmon about to go off and end up a waste, if you're looking for something else to consume by the fistful. Jackson, what is it?"

"Murphy touched Raven's mother dough and now she's going to kill him."

"...Clarke, honey, I'll talk to you later."

 

* * *

 

"Behind! Miller, move your ass, I said _behind_. Now, before I move it for you. This is the last order of the night, I'm tired."

The barely contained madness of Arkadia's kitchen scraped along his skin like sandpaper, boisterous and clearly on the edge of tipping into anarchy even at the tail end of the night. If Abby had only agreed to arranging this meeting _off_ -site it might be easier, but her insistence that they 'discuss what he wants to do to her kitchen _in_ her kitchen' was firm.

"Ah, fuck you, Harper. Quit bitching, I'm getting to it." Miller moved out of Harper's way, raising his middle finger in her direction without looking away from the stove. "What's the matter, girl trouble? If Monroe's not letting you hit it, no reason to take it out on me."

"I'd tell you to go suck a dick, but I'm pretty sure you'd just enjoy that."

"I might. Depends on the dick, though."

Marcus looked to Abby to measure her reaction. That kind of interaction should get them both written up. Reprimanded, at the very least.

"Unless you mean Bryan's, I wouldn't let him hear you talking that way." Hidden just behind the propped open office door, Marcus gaped without fear of being seen, suddenly reassessing Abby's role as enabler into that of participant.

Miller hooted, pushing his bandana higher on his forehead. "If he asks, I'm all his. Between all of us... I also mean Zac Efron. Circa Hairspray, not High School Musical. Don't laugh, that shit's a crucial difference."

Abby just laughed in response and Marcus' pulse beat faster in his throat. Irritation, yes, but not solely in response to her fostering a completely insane work environment based on nothing more than her whim. She's _lovely_. She was lovely when they met, and that was before he'd seen her laugh.

"Are you fucking serious, Miller?" Raven demanded from across the space, volume making him wince. "Efron?"

"I was a theatre kid, shut the fuck up."

"That explains so much about you."

"A _hem_." Marcus cleared his throat, stepping beyond the door. "Ms. Griffin, if you don't mind?"

" _Miiiiiiz Griffin_." He shut the door on the mocking whisper from the kitchen once Abby crossed the threshold, irritation needling again.

"All right. Now that we have a moment to be clear with each other, I think we need to establish—"

"Abby."

"...I'm sorry?"

"My name. It's Abby."

"I." Marcus blinked, momentarily thrown. "I thought it was Abigail."

"It is, but no one calls me that. It's Abby." She smiled, eyes flat. "Which you would know, if you had bothered to have a conversation with me before barking orders you aren't authorized to give."

Caught flat-footed, his mouth thinned. "Authorization aside, I don't think expecting a certain amount of organization and decorum is barking orders, Ms.—"

"Abby."

"Abby." He exhaled noisily, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "We haven't started well, have we?"

"No, not really."

The familiar inherent distrust of anyone in a suit and not an apron firmed her chin, and Marcus repressed a groan. Chefs were touchy. _Territorial_ , and he'd managed to run entirely afoul of this one without intending to.

"Want to try again, see if we can do better?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Happy to."

 

* * *

 

" _—told you, no!_  No menu changes."

"That was almost five minutes of quiet. I'm impressed." Raven turned hard eyes on the door, then flicked them dismissively away. "With her, not him. It doesn't take a lot to fuck up entirely in five minutes, but it takes a lot to listen to bullshit and not lose your cool."

"Raven." Bellamy cleared his throat, shaking his head in a quick negative. She's not _wrong_ , but she knows better. Not in-restaurant, that shit is for afterhours bars or all night diners or their shitty apartments.

"What, you know I'm right."

"Not now, Raven."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes but quieted, looking back towards the door. "You think she'll throw something at him?"

The office door hit the wall with a resounding crack, Abby tumbling out into the empty space provided. Pure fury radiated off her in waves, pulling her tiny frame into something impressive and impossible to ignore.

"We're done."

"Abby—"

"No, we're done. Thelonious hired me with a very specific set of terms. If he wants to change them, _he_ can tell me. Until then, my menu is my menu, and you're welcome to share all your market research with someone who doesn't do this for a living and might be impressed by it."

Marcus opened his mouth to snap back, then glanced at his rapt audience and thought better of it. "Well. I'll relay your message to Jaha." His lips quirked sardonically. "Good night, Abby."

Once the slam of the dining room door announced his exit the room exploded in questions, and Abby shook her head. "Guys... look, right now _I_ don't know what the hell is going on. Give me tonight to figure it out, get back to the yelling questions tomorrow."

"Want me to get Emori's buddies to slash his tires?" Murphy looked as serious as Bellamy had ever seen him.

"No. That's sweet, but no." Abby laughed reluctantly, letting out a little burst of air through her nose. "Call it a night, guys. I'll keep you updated if I figure anything out, but just... go, get drunk. Have fun, this isn't a big deal. I'm just stubborn."

Worry lingered under her reassurance, and once he'd help herd everyone else outside he turned on his heel and headed back in. "Abby?"

"I should have known you wouldn't leave."

"What's wrong?" Clarke told him once that after her dad died her mom seemed defeated, but Bellamy had never been able to believe she _could_ be. Now that he's seen her sitting alone in a darkened kitchen, fingertips rubbing her temples, it's easier to believe and a determined urge to wipe that new belief away fills him. "What can I do?"

"It's really not that big a deal."

"If it wasn't, you wouldn't still be sitting here."

"...you're right." She sagged against a now-cold burner. "The restaurant has a new investor. Marcus said Thelonious mentioned she has some ideas, and he was dispatched to tell me about them." After a reflective pause, she sighed. "I think I might have shot the messenger."

"Just a little bit." Bellamy nudged her with his elbow. "But the messenger was being kind of a dick."

"He was, wasn't he?"

They lapsed into comfortable silence, and Bellamy grinned as the thought struck him that after Octavia's teenage years, the patience to outwait Abby is nothing.

"I know that smile. She said to say hi, I forgot to tell you earlier. And that you're a nerd. You did a good job with that one, you know."

Abby's praise (that she knows what his smiles mean; has _catalogued_ them) made Bellamy's chest tight and he looked away for a moment before answering, swallowing past the slight lump in his throat. "She's a good kid."

"She is. She also had a good example." She looked up at him and put a hand on his sleeve and Bellamy leaned helplessly in, metal shavings to a magnet.

He shouldn't kiss her. There were a million reasons not to do it, like there always were, but her mouth still tugged down unhappily at one corner and Octavia's always been the place where he loses any sense of proportion. It felt everything and nothing like he'd imagined it would, less perfect and more real.

 _Better_. She tasted like the earthiness of stock and cinnamon gum, and sweat coated his fingers when he stroked her hair back from her cheeks, a smear of pesto on his ringer finger transferring to her cheekbone only to be ignored as his mouth moved over hers. He lost himself in the slick sounds of their mouths, the way Abby stifled a gasp and swayed into his body, like she's as helpless against the pull as he is. The kiss lasted until the clock ticked over to the next minute, marking midnight with an obnoxious gong he's never hated more.

"What was that?" Abby brought two fingers up to her mouth, touching reddening lips.

He flushed, brick-red creeping across his cheeks and neck. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Don't be." When he looked up, Abby's eyes were certain, heat lighting her face like a dark room unexpectedly illuminated by a candle. "Do it again."


	2. Chapter 2

 

>   
>  _**Good food does lead to sex. As it should.** _
> 
> _**— Anthony Bourdain** _
> 
>  

Kissing Bellamy felt like the answer to a question Abby hadn't know she'd asked. She'd thought she was merely objectively aware he was handsome—instead she'd told herself she was objective, a pretense gone up in flames with the rest of her restraint.

The stove was cold against her back and Bellamy warm against her front and his mouth wet and eager on hers and Abby suddenly couldn't stand it, needed more than they could ever hope to do in the middle of the kitchen. The fight with Kane left her agitated, already throwing off sparks and Bellamy's kiss served as powder and fuse in one.

"Office." She muttered the word into his mouth, half a gasp. "Bellamy, not out here." Not when the risk of the others returning and interrupting loomed large.

They knocked over a stack of plates on the way, Abby's elbow taking it to the floor as they fumbled to cross the distance without letting go of each other. She barely heard the crash, too busy slamming her office door shut behind her and locking it to take in the damage. The ancient office door might be easily jimmied open, but even Raven would knock before attempting an illicit quickie in the boss' office.

Bellamy's fervor increased with the click of the lock, five o'clock shadow rasping pleasurably as he kissed his way down her throat. He stilled at her neckline, uncertain, and Abby brought a hand up to stroke his messy curls. "Go on."

He bypassed her offer and Abby wanted to complain until he moved his face downwards instead, breath hot and warm as he nuzzled her through her shirt, hot breath making her skin prickle and nipples pucker. "Bellamy, that's... _oh_ , that's so good." He mumbled an affirmative, turning his head to kiss the slope of one breast tenderly and her last vestige of restraint snapped.

Her shirt landed on the chair, but the rest of it might have hit the vent for all she could tell. Bellamy's eyes widened with each garment, throat bobbing. He looked poleaxed and she gloried in it; in his quietly labored breathing, in the way his hands flexed restlessly by his side as if desperate to reach out but not yet certain enough to take without asking.

Taking hold of his right hand, Abby drew it towards her chest and laid it to rest on her sternum, shivering a little at the feeling. "You can touch me. I want you to touch me." He swallowed hard and dragged his palm down and sideways, cupping the heavy weight of one breast. He paused and his eyes darted up towards her, seeking more encouragement, and Abby let the languid heat of the moment fill her voice. "I like it when you touch me. Please, sweetheart, that feels so good."

" _You_ feel good." He offered the words like a confession, hushed and reverent. "You're beautiful." The unvarnished sincerity of the compliments made her stomach clench, arousal a throbbing weight in her lower belly, and Bellamy's voice gained strength at the obvious evidence he'd said the right thing. "Can I..." He slid his hand downward, slow but purposeful and Abby's heart rabbited in her chest.

"Of course. Anything you want."

He reached between her legs and cupped her intimately, the boldness of his hands at odds with his lingering air of hesitance. She moaned and rocked into his touch, openly appreciative. "Oh, sweetheart, that feels so good." Bellamy had craved praise from the day she'd met him, responded to it like a stray pet who only dimly recalled the comfort of a home and covered a longing to have one again with raised hackles only to lower them and refuse to leave once she'd proved herself worth trusting. "You make me feel so good."

He moaned and sucked a kiss into her collarbone, touch frustratingly chaste save for where it is. Abby whined fretfully, tilting her hips in an effort to make his fingers slip and brush against where she wants them most, and Bellamy chuckled as her hands flew up to clutch at him and tried to bring him closer. "I'm getting there." He kissed the skin he'd just purpled, confidence steadier. "I used to jerk off thinking about this, you know. Getting to touch you."

Abby gasped and clawed at Bellamy's shoulder, knuckles long since gone white, struck by an illicit bolt of want at the thought of a younger Bellamy, more distracted by her than his sister's schoolmates. Heart fluttering, she tried to rally. "And how does reality measure up?"

"Better. So much better." Bellamy laughed breathlessly, knocking his forehead into her own even as his fingers slid with dexterous confidence through her folds, thumb coming to rest gently over her clit. "If somebody told me back then you'd ever want me like this, I would have laughed at them."

A low, sad note sounded among the happier chords, and Abby lifted her chin to meet his eyes. "I _do_ , Bellamy. So much."

" _Abby_." His groan was deep and forcefully wrenched from his chest, humming between them like a static charge. "Can I fuck you? Please, I have to—"

"God, yes."

Bellamy sucked a kiss at the juncture of neck and shoulder, hands working at the front of his jeans and stilling. "Shit."

"What is it?"

"I don't have a condom."

 _Condoms_. Abby groaned herself, then knocked her forehead into Bellamy's sternum. It's not as if she'd kept herself in dour celibacy since Jake died, but they'd gone without in hopes of giving Clarke a sibling, and running a kitchen didn't lend itself to a robust dating life. The last time she'd needed to worry about carrying condoms regularly, God only knows how old Bellamy was.

Firmly steering away from that train of thought, Abby pursed her lips and looked up at him. "When were you last tested?"

"A couple months ago. I'm sorry, I should have thought of this before we started."

He looked so disappointed in himself Abby couldn't help but laugh. Leave it to Bellamy to blame himself for being unable to anticipate the utterly unpredictable. "It's all right. Have you been with anyone since?" Bellamy shook his head. "And you were clean?" He nodded, the heat in his gaze slowly beginning to rekindle at her questions and the way she didn't push him away.

 _To hell with it_.

"Oh, to hell with it." After finishing the job on his zipper herself, Abby tugged his cock out of his boxers and admired the heft of it, running her thumbnail lightly over the vein running its length.

"F— _fuck_ ," Bellamy's tongue tripped over the word, arousal heavy, and Abby chuckled.

"Not this time, as much as I'd like to."

"You can't just say things like that." He nosed at her neck and Abby shivered, kissing his collarbone. "Not unless you want me to embarrass myself."

"I'd never want that."

" _Abby_." Rocked to the core by the naked sincerity in her voice, he grasped desperately at her waist and prayed she knew where to go from here. His hands felt clumsy, as unpracticed as his tongue at speaking a language Abby learned long ago in concert with Jake.

"Shhh, shhh." She soothed him with careful touches, tattooing little helixes of certainty down his sides with her fingertips. "Trust me, there's plenty of minimum-risk behavior we can engage in without a condom." His bare ass hit the couch with a thump when she pushed him toward it, cock so hard it bounced once and then flattened tight against his belly again, painting his abs in streaks that gleam under the light reflected from the streetlamp outside. "Let me take care of everything."

Bellamy cried out when she took his cock in hand and trapped it between her inner thighs, snug against her cunt. He subsided into tortured silence, breathing ragged as she settled firmly into place in his lap, the ample curve of her ass settled evenly in the cradle of his hips.

His hands flew up to grip her hips, trembling with the strain of holding back. "Please, you have to move. Abby, please." His head thunked back against the wall, and Abby doesn't have to crane her neck to see him to know he's cycling through ways to convince her not to stretch it out. "You said you'd take care of everything." _Take care of me_. He's known her long enough to know exactly what to say to make his words hit her system like a shot of epinephrine, and her moan triggered a low echo from Bellamy when her muscles tightened in reflexive arousal, more wetness seeping from her cunt to join the sticky smears spreading down her inner thighs.

She inhaled, luxuriating in the feel of it. "That wasn't fair."

"I told you I've wanted this for almost six years, and you're still making me wait." As much as his helpless, wild-eyed _want_ made her throat go dry, this Bellamy—the Bellamy she'd spent so much time convincing he could ask her for anything, and not feel the need to apologize for it—makes her heart swell.

"You know, you're right. That wasn't very nice of me, was it?"

"Definitely n—" Bellamy's voice cracked and faded away as she carefully circled her hips, testing the movement allowed. His hands clamped down hard, digging in like he's trying to etch each of his fingerprints into her body. "'s good." He muttered the words to himself, almost too low for her to hear. "So good."

The feeling of his cock, hard and ready and so close to where she needed him was torture, and Abby's breath came heavy as she thought about angling herself up and then sinking down, taking him in and satisfying an emptiness so present it feels like an ache. "I wish we could do it. You'd feel so good inside me, Bellamy." The words slipped out, and Bellamy's hips jerked upwards, nearly unseating her.

"Sorry, sorry." He stroked her thigh, catching and releasing in a steady rhythm that reminded her of a cat, voice slurred and sex-drunk. "I'm pretty close." He moved the hand on her thigh to the juncture of her thighs, stilling the slowly resuming motion of her hips. "I wanna make you come first." She felt like the words might be enough, and another fresh burst of wet covered his fingers. "Yeah, like that."

She squeezed her eyes shut, colorful sparks setting off behind her lids as Bellamy's hand moved between her legs, one hard swipe of his thumb over her clit enough to send her tumbling weightless into orgasm. Sweat dripped down her back to pool in its hollow as her breathing slowly returned to normal, Bellamy quiet and patient beneath her. The only indication of his need was the insistent press of his erection against her and the fine trembling that wracked his body. He popped and sizzled like a live wire, and Abby felt an answering need reinvigorate her. She closed her hands over Bellamy's, encouraging him to follow the urge making the muscles in his arms jump with eager tension. "It's all right, Bellamy, you can hold me. I want you to."

The permission seemed to remove some last internal bar to action, and Bellamy sat up on the couch in an almost violent motion, wrapping one arm around her abdomen and bringing the other to rest just below her breasts in a possessive . His hips pumped up like they would if he was inside her, teeth set into the meat of her shoulder to help stifle his cries.

He came in a gush of white across her pubic mound with a quiet, animal grunt, teeth tightening past the point where the pain feels good, but his jaw loosened at her wince, and he kissed a delicate apology into the hot skin. Abby turned in his arms, settling back into his embrace and shivering as her nipples brushed his chest. He hummed a soft greeting and kissed her, hand drifting down to touch where his release marked her body, rubbing the evidence of his presence into her skin in slow, absent circles. "Should we move? I don't want to foot the bill for steam cleaning the couch."

"Oh, it's seen much worse than this." Bellamy hummed a soft inquiry and Abby shook her head, smile wry and fond. "Raven and Monroe, and that's only the two I'm sure of." She paused, considering her staff and their various priors. "I have to assume Miller's taken advantage of the shoddy lock, too."

He laughed, nuzzling into her chest and kissing the curve of one breast affectionately. "You're not wrong about that, but I wasn't the one who told you." He kissed her again, inhaling deeply and pulling in their mixed scent. "So, what now?"

Gently but firmly, Abby cut him off. "Raincheck on figuring it all out? For now, just... let's stay like this." She kissed the corner of his mouth, a gentle press of lips. "I just want to feel nothing but good for a little bit longer." He made an agreeable sound and reached between her legs again, fingers brushing against her oversensitive clit. The feeling sent shockwaves through her system and Abby yelped, hips jolting forward. Before he could do much more she pulled his hand away, kissing his wet fingers clean before laying the freckled, knife-scarred palm over her heart. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what..."

Bellamy frowned, confused, and a vicious sort of tenderness filled her heart at what it revealed that he would more readily assume she wanted him to get her off one more time than that she would want to just be with him, enjoying his arms around her. Abby leaned forward, pressing her lips to his.

He sighed happily when she kissed him, and that tenderness surged. "Just stay with me?" She whispered the words into his mouth. "That's what I meant. What I want."

He cleared his throat, but his voice was gruff with repressed emotion when he answered. "Yeah, I can do that. We can do that."

 

* * *

 

Life after that night didn't change, despite Abby's internal sense that the earth had shuddered and paused before resuming its axis and the looming question of forced menu changes; her next shift began with Murphy's latest deal, a weekly staple since the day she'd hired him.

"My girlfriend can get us a great deal on maitakes."

"Your girlfriend probably got them from the Russian mob."

"Yeah, but do you want the mushrooms?"

Abby pinched the skin between her brows, thinking of Emori's sly grin and utter disregard for legality. Weighed against her admittedly fantastic wares, it wasn't a question. "Get me ten pounds. Twelve, if you can turn great into fantastic."

"Throw in a freebie Saturday off, I'll make it fucking fantastic."

She ignored the obvious opening and the teasing leer on his face. "You can take an extra Saturday off when you earn an extra Saturday off."

"Hey, Abby, if I act like a pain in the ass when people are trying to work can I have an extra Saturday off?" Monty didn't look up from his saucepan of brandied pears, but the set of his shoulders expressed the laughter his deadpan didn't.

"Hey, Monty, how about you shut up and get back to your stupid tarts? I'm trying to hustle, here." Not to be deterred, Murphy pressed on. "What if I can bargain her down to fifteen a pound?"

Abby's lips twitched. "I could get fifteen. If you can get me ten a pound, I'll agree to that Saturday."

"Ten?" Murphy's howl made Jackson cough pointedly from across the kitchen, drawing their attention to the clock over his head and the oncoming dinner rush. "That's not happening and you know it. Thirteen."

"Eleven."

" _Twelve_."

"Done."

Murphy blinked. "Really?"

"Murphy, if you can get me maitakes for almost ten bucks under market, you'll deserve that Saturday." Abby patted his shoulder before moving to assume her place at the hub of the kitchen, the beating heart of the line. "I'll rescind that offer if you ever try to tell me what you did to close the deal."

Bellamy grinned at them from his place by the grill, just like he would have before they slept together, and she grinned back, and whatever strain remained dropped away, pushed to the side where it could be discarded with the rest of the day's leavings. The rest of the shift passed with the kind of ease that marks a truly good night, the energy flowing out from between Abby and Bellamy to buoy them all towards closing.

 

* * *

 

The first thing he noticed as he stepped through the doors that marked the line between the real world and the fiefdom in a soap bubble Abby's built for herself was her smile. It was wide—wider than it had been the night before, and directed at the handsome young man who seemed to serve as a link between Abby and the rest of the kitchen. (If there was one thing he could understand, it was their easily codified structure; it stood to reason the only thing that did make sense on this side of the doors was a reminder of his time in uniform.)

Marcus fought the urge to blush, embarrassment and guilt and no small amount of desire curdling over with shame in his stomach. He hadn't meant to watch them kiss, but once they had he couldn't walk away. He'd stood feet from them and listened, hidden safe behind a wall as they'd discovered each other, pinioned between the desire to stay and the need to go.

That he'd waited until he was at home to pull his cock free and picture the bodies that accompanied those sounds, was the only sop to his conscience he could lay claim to. He had pictured Abby's face and Bellamy's corded arms and spilled into his own fist, both their names on his lips, but he'd done it at home and he'd done them the respect of not inserting himself into a private moment, even in his head.

He snorted, scrubbing a hand over his face. What he'd done was far more intrusive than picturing their hands on his body, too. There was something in Abby Griffin's kitchen that made people lose their minds, that much was eminently clear.

"Oh, look. It's the fuzz."

It says everything about the distortion field that existed inside this little bubble that he hadn't heard the quick click-jangle of Raven's brace as she approached.

"General manager, actually."

"Same thing." She planted her feet and crossed her arms over her chest, sizing him up, and Marcus fought the urge to shuffle his feet like a chastened schoolboy under the regard of a woman half his age. "You pissed off Abby pretty good the other night. "

"Raven." Abby appeared out of the walk-in refrigerator, shaking her head. "Leave him alone." She looked ready to protest, and Abby shook her head, firmly. "He's not the enemy, all right? We just had a misunderstanding."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes, I am."

Marcus fought an irrational flush of pleasure, keeping his eyes as cool as possible, but Raven's own eyes narrow further. "Whatever you say," she conceded with ill-grace. Her real message was perfectly clear: Abby might have decided to attempt a truce, but her staff shared no such goodwill. "You need anything?"

"Not right now." Raven stayed standing between them, and Abby sighed. "Marcus, why don't we continue in my office."

Raven watched them go, standing in place until Abby shut the door and blocked her from view. Suddenly awkward, he fell back on the safe haven of discussing business, and not thinking about why he feels as though entering her orbit has thrown him down the rabbit hole and spat him out into a world he doesn't understand and can't quite navigate. "I spoke to Jaha."

Abby nodded, face inscrutable. "What did he say?"

"That you were right. The suggestions were just that—suggestions, and the kitchen is yours to run."

"Thank you." Her lips quirked. "That couldn't have been easy to admit."

He scanned her face, looking for mockery and only finding wry good humor. Tentatively, he smiled back. "It wasn't."

"I'm not sure I would have done it. I can be incredibly petty when I feel like I'll be able to get away with it."

"I couldn't tell."

This time she studied his face for a hidden barb before relaxing into the joke again. "Well, it's true." She continued to study him, and he shifted under the scrutiny, transported back to his teenage years and visits to the school nurse for no fathomable reason. "This is going to be blunt, but you seem like a man who respects the unvarnished truth, and it would be in both our interests to clear the air and figure out out to work together rather than against each other."

He cocked his head, brows lifted in a questioning arch.

"I don't respect your opinion on how to do my job because you haven't given me a reason to respect it."

Marcus flinched, stung and unable to swallow back a protest despite his best intentions. "Abby—"

"No, hear me out." She continued when he nodded, tabling his protest for later. "In this very specific area. If we were discussing business, I'd listen to you, but you don't know how to run a kitchen. I do."

"I was hired—"

"To make decisions about business, and help keep me sane and everything organized on that end of things. Not interfere on this side of them."

It was a fair point, and Marcus inclined his head in acknowledgement. "All right. What do you propose, then?"

"Come spend time in this world, and if you still think we should incorporate Ms. Luz's menu ideas, we can have the argument for real."

He blinked. "You're inviting me to spend... _more_ time in your kitchen?"

"Why not?"

 _Because your insane staff wants to slash my tires_. Marcus pressed his lips together, trying to find a better answer than the blunt truth. "Because last night, it was all you could do to get me out of here."

"That was last night." Her shoulder came up in an elegant shrug. "This is now. Once you've had a month or two to absorb how we work, I think you'll see I was right."

"Two _months_?" Abby gave him a flat look at his incredulous tone, but Marcus couldn't help himself. "You really think I need two months to grasp the basics?"

"I think the fact that you're offended by that shows exactly why you need it. How long would you expect it to take for me to grasp the practical basics of what you do well enough to give you advice?"

His offense flagged, and he felt a disbelieving laugh bubble up as she neatly deflated his ego in one carefully worded sentence. "I surrender." Her lips curved in a smug little smile, and Marcus tried not to wonder if that was how she'd looked a night ago, after Bellamy brought her to a climax that still rings in his ears. "How would it work?"

"You can shadow Bellamy." He felt a surge of anxious anticipation, but her next words brought affront back to the fore. "He'll keep you out of trouble."

"Like an underfoot toddler, you mean?"

"No, like a man who's never worked a line or spent significant time in a working kitchen while it's operational. People could get hurt, Marcus, I'm serious."

Pricked pride put to the side, the truth in her words rang clear. She was right, he'd never worked a line, but he'd seen others work it, and the safety regulations he knew like the back of his hand provided a gruesome window into all the potential risks. "All right. You're right, I'm sorry."

"But you're not used to being treated like you don't know anything." She went silent, eyeing him with open contemplation. "Stick close to Bellamy, you'll be all right. He'll take care of you."

Like he had taken care of her. Marcus' throat clicked on a swallow, suddenly parched. "He did seem solicitous." Abby's eyes widened, light pink dusting the tops of her cheeks. "And he didn't threaten to slash my tires."

"You overheard that?"

"I waited outside the door until you told them to leave." Because he wanted to apologize, and because his feet refused to lead him out to his car like they should have. "I wanted to try and clear the air then." And hadn't been able to, because she'd been otherwise occupied.

"But you went home, instead." Abby's tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip and he felt his head swim. The unspoken hovers over them both, charging the space between them like the air before a storm.

"I didn't want to intrude." To his horror the words came out as a low rumble, the heat building in his gut betraying all his previously held ideas about propriety and much needed work-personal life divides.

"Oh, you wouldn't have been intruding."

Sweat beaded on the back of his neck as Marcus struggled not to follow her suggestive line of thought and then immediately gave in. She would be soft against him, breasts full and heavy in his hands, and Bellamy... he would be soft, in his own way, golden skin and the kind of rangy frame that promises hidden reserves of strength. He felt himself go half-hard, straining against two sets of phantom hands.

Abby said something, tinny and distant, and he shook his head in an attempt to clear it. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I said, I was just finishing up some paperwork. It wouldn't have been a problem."

 _Paperwork_. Marcus snorted, lured into play by the wicked glint in her eyes. "Paperwork."

She smiled serenely, inclining her head in mock-solemn acknowledgement. "Paperwork."

"Next time I will, then." Yet another thing he shouldn't have said, but her pleased smirk made any regret an afterthought.

"In that case, I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early." She patted his shoulder and leaned in, voice dripping with faux-sympathy. "Sunday staff meeting, nine am. You can join us."

Dazed by her proximity and the scent of food and sweat and _Abby_ , Marcus nodded. "Tomorrow, then."

 

* * *

 

Bellamy waited outside the door impatiently, Raven a silent sentinel by his side until she clapped him on the shoulder and quipped about the end of her watch and the beginning of his before wandering off to change into street clothes and start an argument with Murphy about what bar they should hit to blow off steam.

He listened to the bickering with half an ear, most of his attention focused on trying to make out the voices inside the office. He caught a word here and there, one of them his name, but nothing to satisfy his curiosity. He grunted in response to Raven's goodbye, lifting a hand to flip Murphy off at the same time.

The door finally opened six and a half moments after they left and Abby stepped out, Marcus following. He gave Bellamy an impossible to interpret look before he strode away. It itched like sand trapped in his shoes after a walk on the beach, a vague sensation and maddening in its consistency. He shoved it away to concentrate on Abby.

"What did Kane want?" Abby coughed, a choked little sound, and Bellamy cocked his head in unspoken repetition of his question.

"To tell me he spoke to Jaha."

"And?"

"The menu is safe." She hesitated, then sighed. "For now, but I think I might have found an unlikely ally in keeping it that way."

"...him?"

"That's the one. I volunteered you as tribute, I hope you don't mind."

"What do you need me to do?" It was the only possible answer.

"I knew I could count on you." Abby gave him a look of warm gratitude that made him want to promise anything if she'd agree to never stop looking at him like that. "Let him shadow you, keep him out of everyone's way and keep them from more than mild hazing. And I thought we might try and teach him to cook."

"I mean, sure, but how does any of that help us?"

"Marcus," she paused, considering her words. "I think he needs to _know_ why something is neccesary, not be told. If we can show him arbitrary menu changes aren't in the restaurant's best interests, he'll argue the case the the new investor and help me keep Jaha from caving to appease her."

Bellamy nodded his approval. "All right, then. I'm in."

"Good." She nodded decisively, her indication a conversation is closed. "I think he saw us last night."

" _Fuck_. I'm so sorry, I didn't think—" Panic buzzed in his ears, and she reached for him, delicate fingers encircling his forearm. "It's my fault, I kissed you."

"Shhh, don't. I'm glad you did." She squeezed gently, a comforting pressure. "It's okay, he's not going to say anything."

"You're not upset?"

"Why would I be?"

"Abby, he _saw_ us."

"Exactly." He blinked, uncomprehending, and she sighed and arched an eyebrow. "He saw us, and he didn't just walk away. If I were upset, it would be with him."

"You don't mind that he saw?"

"I don't think _he_ minded that he saw." Bellamy inhaled sharply but she bustled onward. "I don't know exactly what it is we're doing, but I'm not ashamed of it and I don't want to stop. Although we probably should make it a policy to stay hands-off at work." She looked at her office door. "Hands-off in the kitchen, at least."

 _I don't want to stop_. The words made him feel drunk and everything after only made it worse, hitting his system and bringing color to his face. "I don't want to stop, either."

"Good."

"You said he didn't mind." What the hell had they _talked_ about behind that door? Abby nodded and Bellamy felt a twin of the reckless urge to kiss her rise the night before, emboldening him. "Do you mind?"

"Not really." Her eyes gleamed, and he swallowed hard. "Do you?"

He thought about it, Marcus watching them kiss—maybe listening to them through the door, straining to catch every muted whisper just like Bellamy had. "Not really." Abby's hand flexed on his arm and Bellamy could _feel_ how much she wanted to touch him, the attention better than any drink ever could hope to be. "So what does that mean?"

"It means if you want him to watch us again, I wouldn't mind that either."

Entranced, Bellamy bobbed his head. "Do we just ask him, or...?"

Her lips curled into a feline smile, and Bellamy's breath came shorter. "Let me take care of it."


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

> _**I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able – if called upon to do so – to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world.** _
> 
> __
> 
> _**—Anthony Bourdain** _
> 
>  

Sunday did not go well.

"Why's he here?" Raven tipped her chin towards Marcus, ponytail bouncing with the force of the gesture.

"If we're all about to get fired, I quit. Just wanna put that out there right now."

"Shut up, Murphy."

The answer came from the rest of the kitchen as one, and he crossed his arms over his chest and lifted one shoulder, insouciant sneer taking in the room in its entirety. "When you're all fired and I'm the guy who quit, I'm gonna be such an asshole about it."

"You're always an asshole, though," Monroe offered, and Murphy gave her a betrayed look. "What? You are. It's not a great threat, I'm just pointing it out."

"Okay, children, that's enough." Abby rolled her eyes, more amused than irritated. "Nobody's fired."

"So, like I said. Why's he here?" Raven gave her a concerned look. "Abby, enough with the suspense."

She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the inevitable explosion. "He's going to be spending the next couple months with us, learning how we do things up close and personal."

"Here?"

"With us?"

" _Months_ with big brother breathing down our necks?" Raven's voice rose above the din, outraged. "Abby, he can't make you agree to that."

"It was a joint decision." Bellamy stepped into the center of their loose circle, hands upheld like an attempt to calm a feral animal. "Guys. Take it down a notch, all right? Nobody's making anybody do anything. The three of us all agreed."

Raven lost some of her aggressive air. "You signed off on this?" Abby might have to consider the business, but Bellamy had their needs in mind and she knew it. "Fine. Whatever." She bared her teeth at Marcus in what loosely be called a smile. "We'll make him feel right at home."

 

* * *

 

Tuesday was worse.

The flour coated Marcus from the top of his head all the way down to his navel, drifting through the air in slow, lazy eddies to cover his pristine loafers.

"Oops." Raven shrugged, brushing off her hands. "Slipped."

 

* * *

 

All in all, the shirt and the shoes might be the mildest price he could have paid, Marcus mused. He looked like a lunatic and desperately needed a shower, but they hadn't damaged anything but his pride.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he glanced at the screen and sighed, thumbing it on and bringing it up to his face a careful quarter inch away from the thin layer of flour clinging to the side of his face. "Ma'am."

"Marcus. I trust everything is running smoothly at Arkadia?"

His eyes fluttered shut, and he swallowed a helpless laugh. Everything. What _was_ running smoothly? "Everything's going well, yes. I've been assigned to shadow Bellamy Blake."

"Good. He'll be a useful asset, if we can bring him around to our way of thinking." The throaty satisfaction woven through her precise words sent guilt zinging through his system, the faith in Abby's face when she'd proposed the agreement ever-present at the front of his mind.

"I told her I'd give her a fair chance, and I will."

"Of course, Marcus. But you're a smart man. I trust you'll do the right thing."

"Of course," he echoed hollowly, unlocking his car as if in a daze. "Was there anything else?"

"That was it. We'll speak again later."

 

* * *

 

Abby waited for the roar of Marcus' engine to suspend activity in the kitchen, bringing two fingers up to her lips and letting out an ear piercing whistle. "Okay, my office. _All_ of you."

"Abby, I didn't—"

"Come on, Raven." Stepping up behind her, Bellamy laid a gentle hand on her arm. "You're not in trouble."

"I'm not _thrilled_ ," Abby interjected, "but Bellamy's right. Nobody's about to get chewed out, just... come on, let's go talk."

The office wasn't meant to hold this many, but Abby shut the door after the last of the chastened herd tumbled in.

"I know this feels like an invasion of your space—"

"Yeah, because it _is_ —ow, Jesus Christ. Do you sharpen those things?"

Raven pulled her elbow away from Murphy's ribs without answering, nodding for Abby to continue.

"Like I said, I know it feels like that, but I wouldn't have invited him here if I didn't think it might help."

"You seemed pretty sure he couldn't help anything that first day," Miller pointed out without any real heat.

"You said he could help us. Help us with what?" Raven shook her head. "You're leaving something out. Something big."

"Abby, you can trust us." Harper's earnest face shone with conviction. "Whatever it is, you know we'll help. None of us want to work for anyone else."

"I wouldn't go that far," Murphy drawled, "but if it's all the same, I'd rather not pound the pavement looking for a job twice in a year."

"Abby, just tell them. We need him on our side, and they should know why." Out of sight, Bellamy brushed his fingertips gently against her back, and she drew strength from that point of comfort.

"Our side? Against who?" Raven's attention sharpened. "Abby, what's going on?"

She looked to Jackson, and he shrugged. "It's your call, but I think Bellamy's right. They should know."

Abby sighed. The urge to keep them all shielded wasn't what they needed now, Bellamy and Jackson had it right. "Thelonious brought in a new investor, and she has some menu ...suggestions."

"And they all suck." Miller nodded, working it through. "Okay, so why bring Kane in?"

"I made a deal with him." Raven looked ready to explode, and Abby shook her head. "I didn't promise him changes, don't worry. I made him a deal—two months in the kitchen with us, and at the end of two months if he still thinks whatever graph about food trends is right, I'll at least entertain the argument."

"Which means we can't drive him off before two months is up, or the deal's off." Raven winced. "I'm a little sorry about the flour now."

"On the scale of things you might have done, it wasn't the worst one." Raven relaxed into the couch again, nodding. "But no more, okay? He's a better ally than he is an enemy."

"So what do you need from us?"

Abby cast Harper a grateful look. "Just be yourselves. No, I mean it. Yourselves like you would be if he _weren't_ here."

"What about dick jokes?" Miller flinched when Raven socked him in the arm. "What, you're the one who antiqued the guy. I just want to know if we're allowed to make dick jokes."

"As many as you deem necessary." The return to what Marcus saw as casual disrespect made a band of pressure locked around Abby's chest loosen, letting air through again. "And you could try giving him a chance. He's willing to do it for you."

"Or to you," Murphy muttered, scratching the back of his hand disinterestedly. "Hey, we all saw him looking. Is that all?"

Abby pointed at the door. "Out." She paused, then added, "And Murphy?"

"Yeah?"

"Just for that last crack, if you want that Saturday off I'm expecting ten bucks a pound."

"What the hell, Abby, you know she'll never go for that!"

Closing the door on his outraged face, Abby chuckled and grabbed her phone, relieved when Marcus picked up on the first ring. "Marcus? Listen, why don't we call this shift a wash. Come in after closing, we'll finish the day with something a little better than a bag of flour to the face."

 

* * *

 

Tuesdays aren't Fridays, but they still do brisk business. Bellamy only found spare moments to think about what closing meant, too busy keeping half an eye on the rest of the kitchen alongside his own work. The only disaster came after the last plate hit the dining room courtesy of Harper's sherry reduction, but it wouldn't be the last shirt sacrificed at the altar of post-shift energy.

"...I hope that isn't an indication of things to come."

Bellamy jumped, only noticing Marcus in the corner after turning it. "Huh?"

"Your shirt." He nodded his head towards the stain on his abdomen. "After the flour, I feel like it stands to reason I should be cautious."

"Nah, you're safe. Harper swung around too fast for me to get out of the way, it was an accidental collision, not friendly fire."

"Good. I was worried about what the next escalation might be, if they'd moved from flour to gravy in one afternoon." His smile tugged higher in one corner, just slightly tentative. It eased Bellamy's own nerves, brightening his smile, and Marcus' smile evened out in response. They stood there, silently smiling, until a series of clanks from the kitchen popped the bubble holding them suspended in the moment, and Bellamy ducked his head to look down at his stomach.

"I should go change shirts. I've got an extra in my locker, so if you want to head in and get started with Abby I'll get cleaned up and come join you guys in a second."

"Of course."

Maybe it's his imagination, but Bellamy could swear Marcus felt a twin of his own disappointment when he stepped away, breaking the warm line of almost-contact between them.

"I'm just going to..." He gestured towards the door with his thumb, taking his own steps away. "Be right back."

"We'll be waiting."

Scrubbing his stomach in the staff bathroom, Bellamy played the words back in his head. _We'll be waiting_. It was bad enough when it was just Abby, but the husky catch to Marcus' voice pinged around his head, impossible to ignore. _We'll be waiting._ It looped like a shitty audio feed, _we'llbewaitingwe'llbewaitingwe'llbewaiting_.

He shut off the water, balling his discarded shirt in one fist and staring at his reflection in the mirror. After a bracing inhale, he pushed away and headed for his locker and its change of clothes, the bathroom door clicking softly shut behind him.

Abby and Marcus' voices were a dim babble under the rattle of the air conditioner, all shape and no substance, rising and falling in the song-song of courtesies he doesn't need to hear clearly to identify. His own footsteps faded into the hum, and Bellamy halted just shy of the half-wall that blocked the staging area from view of the kitchen, caught in the urge to observe without being seen.

"Lesson one: eggs. How do you like them?" Wisps of hair escaped her tight bun and Abby shoved them back impatiently, face hidden but vague irritation clear in the choppy motion of her hands.

"Over easy, but Abby... eggs?" Marcus repeated, skeptical. "Really? I said I wasn't an expert cook, not a complete novice. I know how to make eggs." She turned her head to give him a look and he amended, "I know how to scramble eggs."

"And how is that?"

"Well, you crack them, then you..." Marcus raised a hand, mimicking what Bellamy could only assume was supposed to be moving eggs around in a pan. "And add some salt."

"Well then, we'll add scrambled eggs to the list, too. For today, over easy. Come here." Abby beckoned Marcus with one finger and Bellamy watched with a pang of amused sympathy as he swayed forward, drawn in before he made the conscious choice to move his feet.

"I get the sense everything I think I can already make is going be on this list by the end."

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh, just a feeling."

They have the kind of chemistry that used to populate the shows Octavia loved at sixteen, fast-paced and loaded with tension. Bellamy watched with fascination as Marcus nudged Abby aside and retrieved the skillet she'd been trying to reach, muscles in his forearm flexing obviously.

"So, how long has Bellamy been working for you?"

"Marcus." Abby's head was still turned away from him, but Bellamy could hear the disappointment in her voice and picture her face without much difficulty. "You know the answer to that."

"I do." He coughed, then admitted gruffly, "I didn't know how to ask..."

"If that was the first time he and I made the kind of mistake that could lead to problems for all of us?" Marcus gave one miserable nod, and Abby touched his arm. "I don't make a habit of kissing the men I'm with in the middle of my place of work where anyone could see. It won't be an issue."

 _The men I'm with_. Bellamy swallowed hard, almost missing Marcus' next words.

"He's important to you."

The world came to a sudden stop, everything hanging on Abby's reply. He shouldn't be listening to this; Abby would tell him he mattered if he asked, but hearing the truth of the matter without her attempting to spare his feelings stuck his feet firmly to the ground.

"He's vital."

 _Vital_. The word sunk its hooks into him and dug at his guts, making Bellamy feel momentarily unmoored. Not just important, not just needed, but _vital_. He would have done anything for the woman who saw Octavia constantly full with something other than box mac and cheese or chicken nuggets for the first time in their lives, but Abby hadn't left well enough alone and confined her attentions to Octavia.

That he meant something to her, too... Bellamy swallowed hard, walking back to the lockers and slamming his shut again before emerging. "Sorry about that, O texted. What'd I miss?"

"Just Marcus betraying he has no idea how to make scrambled eggs, despite what he says." The easy sharing of a joke that might have been just for them felt somehow important, and Bellamy knew the inexplicable weight of it was obvious when Abby's smile went quizzical. "Harper said to say she's sorry a few hundred more times before I had Monroe help get her out the door."

"I told her it wasn't a big deal." He dared a gentle squeeze to her shoulder, hitching one hip up against the counter. "So, eggs?"

"Eggs." Abby read the reassurance in his answer and relaxed, concern melting away. "I was just about to explain that it's not an insult."

"She means it, you know. They were the first thing she worked on with me, too."

"If you can't make an egg, you're not a chef." Abby's tone brooked no argument. "Make an egg _properly_ , Marcus, don't say it."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Fine, instead I'll ask who exactly defines 'properly'?"

"She does." Bellamy jerked a thumb at Abby before she found the right reply, pushing down an urge to flush and stammer when they both turned approving smiles his way.

"I knew I hired you for a reason."

Flushing, Bellamy ducked his head. "I make pretty good eggs."

"Yeah, that's why." Out of Marcus' view she put her hand on his back, heat scorching through his shirt and down to the bone. "Okay, let's get started. First step: butter." A beat. "For the _pan_ , Marcus."

It took the better part of a carton to reach an egg Abby deemed up to snuff, and Marcus raised his plate in mock triumph when she finally nodded.

"Ninth try's a charm."

"For your first time, it wasn't bad." Abby's approving look gave him the boost needed to not just leave it there. "All you need is a little more experience."

"And two good teachers." Abby took the plate from Marcus' hands, letting her fingers linger on his skin far longer than a handoff required. "Stick with us, we'll whip you into shape in no time." Marcus looked from Abby to Bellamy, eyes wide, and Bellamy felt his own lips twitch in sympathetic acknowledgement. Abby with an idea in her head is a force of nature, like an impeccably mannered steamroller. "In fact, I thought private lessons might be in order."

"Private lessons?" Marcus parroted the words back, stunned. "I'm not sure how much more private we could get." He gestured around the empty kitchen, and Bellamy saw the moment Abby decided to pounce on the opportunity before the words left her mouth.

"You could come home with us."

Stubbornly, Marcus clung to denial. "I don't know that another kitchen would make the difference."

"Marcus, honey." His head flew up at the endearment, giving Bellamy a panicked look he returned with a reassuring one of his own. "Come home with us."

He looked between them with anxiety and increasing confusion, trying to fit the pieces of this puzzle into a shape that makes sense to him and coming back empty. "Abby, you can't just... ask me to join you."

"Why not?"

"Because..." Marcus flailed helplessly for an answer, caught in the simplicity of Abby's belief that she can have what she wants. "This doesn't happen. It can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, Abby, but it just doesn't. People don't do this."

"Marcus. Marcus, look at me and be honest." Bellamy's throat went dry, watching him turn his head back towards Abby, agonizingly slow. "Do you want me?"

"God, yes." The words sounded torn out of him.

"Do you want him?" She nodded to Bellamy and he froze in place, pinned beneath Marcus' searching gaze. The room seemed to throb with tension, balanced on the knife's edge of anticipation.

"Yes." Arousal thickened his voice, fraying it at the edges and Bellamy felt sweat prickle at the back of his neck.

"And we both want you. If you want us, there's no 'supposed to'."

Marcus looked torn, and Bellamy stepped towards him. "Can I?" He nodded, silent, and Bellamy brought one hand up to rest on his waist and the other to cup his face, five o'clock shadow rasping against his palm. He leaned in, telegraphing his intent, and when Marcus only exhaled quietly and closed his eyes in anticipation he pressed their lips together.

His first kiss with Abby had been long-deferred, the fulfillment of a million kisses he'd wanted to give her before. Kissing Marcus is striding through clean, unmarked snow, marking new paths for no reason other than the joy of discovery. Neither is better but both are equally heady, and he made a small, pleased sound into Marcus mouth, hand at his waist now clenching down and catching fabric in a loose fistful.

Marcus rumbled back low in his chest, the tentative press of his lips and tongue becoming more insistent as his cock twitched against Bellamy's inner thigh. He shuddered at the suggestion of more to come, struck by a sudden desire to drop to his knees and rub his cheek against the stiffening length.

"Boys." Abby's hand on his lower back brought him back to himself. "As much as I'm enjoying the show, I'm not sure this is the best venue for it."

Bellamy backed away reluctantly, running his tongue over swollen lips. Marcus looked just as shaken, eyes soft and a little unfocused. He came back to himself piece by piece, clarity and reserve stiffening his spine.

"I need..." He swallowed. "I need time to think about it."

"Of course." Abby patted his shoulder, then stepped out of his space in a purposeful distancing. "Take all the time you need."

 

* * *

 

"I give it a week, and that's only if he gets stubborn." Marcus would say yes. She could feel it in her bones; see it in the helpless, needy way he'd clung to Bellamy, and the regretful look he'd given them both as he walked away.

Bellamy hesitated at the top of the stairs and she took his hand, tugging him towards her open bedroom door. "Come on." He looked at the room like he'd never seen it, and Abby laughed. "You've been in here before, Bellamy."

"Not like this." He kissed her this time, cupping her face in gentle hands. "I want to do things right."

Breathless, Abby gently bumped her forehead into his, running her tongue over tingling lips. "No complaints yet."

"Keep me posted."

A core of sincerity underlaid the joke and Abby pulled away in reply, pulling her shirt over her head and then tossing it and her bra towards the vanity's chair without bothering to check if they hit their target. "First update: we're both wearing too many clothes."

A boyish grin split his face, crinkling the skin around his eyes. "I can take care of that."

His clothes joined hers on the floor as they tumbled towards the bed, Bellamy's arm locked firmly around her waist and his mouth on the sensitive skin just below her ear. "Please tell me you have condoms."

She threw her head back and laughed, arching up encouragingly when Bellamy's eyes snap down towards her breasts, drawn by the movement. "I went out and bought mo— _oh_." The word broke in half on a surprised moan, hand flying down to clutch at Bellamy's curls. His tongue traced a wet line around her nipple before he sealed his mouth over it, holding her closer as he suckled. "Oh, that's good." Mouth working in long, gentle pulls, Bellamy stoked the fire in her belly higher. "A little harder." He obeyed, a hair too enthusiastically, and Abby tugged at his hair, back arching. "Not quite that hard, just... that's it, that's perfect."

His other hand snaked between her legs, testing her wetness and finding her soaked to the tops of her thighs. " _Abby_." His mouth detached with a soft pop, and he rolled his forehead into her chest, hips rubbing against the mattress. "You're so wet already." He slurred the words into the curve of her breast, tongue tracing slick patterns over already damp skin. "Fuck, so wet."

"I've been like that since you kissed Marcus."

He jolted like she'd stuck him, head flying up. "Really?"

Leaning down to kiss him made a muscle in her neck twinge uncomfortably, but there was no cure for disbelief but to do it. "Really." She kissed him again and leaned back up, rolling her neck to release the sudden tension, and Bellamy followed her back up.

"So you liked it? Watching us together?" The growing confidence in his voice settled in her belly like a shot of whiskey.

"I did. I'll like it even better when I get to see him fuck you." His breath escaped in a ragged gasp, and Abby stroked a hand over his chest. "What would he do, Bellamy? If Marcus were here right now, how would he touch you?"

Bellamy's hips jerked, pre-come pooling in a sticky mess on his abs. " _Fuck_. Fuck, you can't just say stuff like that."

"It's only fair." He groaned and she slapped him lightly on one flank. "You're the one who got to kiss him."

"I did."

A slow smiled drew his lips up and Abby leaned down to kiss it away, nipping at the full lower curve. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Did you?"

She stroked a hand along his side, nodding. "I told you earlier, no complaints here. You two look beautiful together." He made a face at 'beautiful' and she laughed, kissing him again. "You are. With or without Marcus."

Bellamy kissed her to stop the flow of compliments, hand just this edge of too tight on her waist. "I wanna go down on you." He flexed the hand between her legs purposefully, and the bald desire hit her in the gut like a blow, heat radiating out from point of impact in hot, almost painful waves. "Please, Abby, let me."

"Later." He huffed a loud breath, ready to argue, and she kissed him. "I've been waiting days for you to fuck me. Right after, if you want—" His eyes lit up and she groaned, pulling him in for another kiss. "Okay, definitely right after, but for right now..."

"Where are the condoms?"

She pointed to the nightstand on her side of the bed. "Top drawer." He rolled away and Abby dipped a hand between her legs, tracing the wet crinkle of her labia up to her clit, enjoying the sparks her touch sets off. Beside her Bellamy stilled, and she looked up, expecting his gaze to be fixed on her. Instead he stared into the drawer as if transfixed, one muscle in his jaw ticking.

"What's... oh." Her vibrator would be right next to the condoms, Abby realized, and she smoothed a hand down Bellamy's back. When he looked up at her, the guilty heat in his eyes singed her, and she clenched her thighs in reflexive arousal. " _Oh_ ," she said again, in an entirely new tone, and reached past him to bypass the condoms and pick up the vibrator, weighing the slender weight in her palm and seeing it with new eyes. "Do you want to use this on me, sweetheart?"

He nodded, gulping, but the more immediate answer to her question lingered in his eyes.

"Do you want me to use it on you?"

He went dusky red down to his chest in a brilliant sweep of color, but by sheer force of will he held her eyes and nodded. "Yeah."

"Good boy, telling me what you want. Come on, roll over." She crooned the words into his collarbone, loving the easy way Bellamy complied and turned on his belly, head pillowed on his arms. "I'll take care of you." She planted her knees between his thighs, encouraging to spread them wider like he would have to in order to accommodate Marcus' larger body. "There you go." Abby kissed the smattering of freckles under her mouth, tracing the lines between them with the top of her tongue. "Does that feel good?"

"Everything you do feels good."

There's oil in the bathroom that would make this faster, but memories of hours spent driving Jake crazy with a bigger toy than the one in her hand and a reluctance to leave the circle of intimate warmth they've built kept her in place.

Instead she lowered her hand to place the vibrator between her legs, sighing as it sinks easily into her cunt. Beneath her, Bellamy stilled, trying to place the wet sounds. Abby felt the moment he placed them in the uncontrolled thrust of his hips into the mattress. "Shhh, it's all right."

"You're going to kill me."

"Poor thing." She stifled a sigh of regret as she pulled the vibrator free and flicked on the lowest setting before using the tip to trace the tight pink crinkle of skin hidden between Bellamy's legs. She leaned down harder on his thighs when he bucked up, chasing the sensation. "Shhh, I know. Soon."

"I can take it now," he said stubbornly, still trying to arch up. "It's not my first time, I can take it."

"I'm sure you can," she replied placidly, sitting down more firmly on his thighs. "But you said you wanted to do this right." He cursed under his breath and growled into the crook of his arm but relaxed into the mattress, bobbing his head in acceptance. He moved restlessly under her with each pass as she slowly rubbed the vibrator against him, gentle but implacable as his body relaxed by slow degrees, allowing the tip inside.

The feel of flesh yielding made her feel ten feet tall, just as good as she remembered and Abby slowly pushed the plastic deeper, watching a full-body shiver take hold of Bellamy when her hand met the firm curve of his ass, at the limits of what she can give if not what he can take. "That feel good?" He groaned and she rubbed a loving hand over the knobs of his spine, soothing him. "You're doing so well, taking it so beautifully for me." His shivering became shaking when she turned the intensity up in gradual pulses, adjusting her angle and searching for his prostate until he whined, high in his chest like a hurt animal.

" _Abby_." He sobbed her name into his arm, rubbing his hips against the sheets in unashamed need. "Please, you have to... I'm so close."

"You go ahead, sweetheart." She pressed herself down onto his back, using her pelvis to keep the vibrator in place and rolling her hips in a slow, unmistakable rhythm. "Come for me." He cried out and redoubled his thrusts into the mattress, breathing in loud, labored gusts. Abby rode the motion out, nipping the back of his neck and then kissing the sting away. "Just like that, Bellamy. Just like you're going to for him."

His hips stilled on one last jerky thrust, choked-off cry echoing in her head after it fades away. Abby pulled the vibrator free and turned it off then rolled off his back, breathing hard, so wet her thighs made a soft, sucking sound when she parted them. Orgasm hovered within easy reach after watching Bellamy, and Abby made a soft sound of pleasure as her fingers parted her folds.

"You said I could." Bellamy nosed her hand away, and the press of his stubbled cheek against her clit was nearly enough to send her hurtling over the edge. He mumbled his approval of her moan, licking a bold stripe from her center to her clit before sealing his mouth around her and sucking. Orgasm hit like a lash of electricity, running through her from her head to her toes and back again. Abby yanked at Bellamy's hair and he moaned happily, sucking harder and sending her tilting headfirst into a second climax before the first could truly end, the pleasure so sharp she curled in on him and sobbed with the intensity.

"No more, Bellamy, you have to stop I can't—"

He released her with one last kiss to her swollen, oversensitive cunt, and her hips jackknifed up, helpless cry bouncing off the walls. Bellamy chuckled, sitting up and wiping his wet face with the back of his arm. "I told you, I've been thinking about this for years."

"Thank _God_ for that," Abby said vehemently, and he laughed again then crawled up her body, pulling her into his arms.

"That was pretty good."

"I'd say it was a whole lot more than that." Abby rubbed her cheek against his chest, luxuriating in the feel of smooth bare skin. "Imagine what it's going to be like when he's actually here."

"I don't know how it'll top this."

Abby tweaked his nipple, laughing when he swatted her hand away. "Oh, I think we'll find a way."

 

* * *

 

Abby's house suited her, Marcus thought. Orderly and clearly expensive but not ostentatious about it, with riots of flowers blooming in chaotic bursts along the front walk, a cheerful affront to the perfectly manicured lawns boxing her in on each side.

He paused at the door, hand hovering near the bell. His car and the route home beckon, so much simpler than anything that could lay beyond her threshold. Crossing it means crossing lines that don't erase themselves once stepped over, remaining behind as permanent markers for the boundaries of the man he thought he was.

The bell was cool under his finger, the chime pleasant, but he barely heard it. The cowardly urge to turn back built, to flee to the car and safety before Abby can answer the door.

"Marcus?" Abby's mouth formed a surprised circle, and she let the door swing open to show more of the foyer. A fresh bruise bloomed lurid and purple at the base of her neck, matching a smaller one on Bellamy's, and his throat clicked on a dry swallow.

"I..." They're both half-dressed. Just out of bed, he realized, and picturing it nearly brought him to his knees. "I came to say..." Gathering courage, he coughed and forced the rest out. "I thought about it, and yes. Yes, I want..." Words failed him, and he trailed off, finishing lamely, "This. You. Both of you."

Abby's hand closed gently around his bicep, and when he looked up there was no pity or mockery in her expression, no indication he'd just bumbled his way out of the offer. "Marcus?"

"Yes?"

"Why don't you come inside."


	4. Chapter 4

> **_I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure._ **
> 
> **_— Anthony Bourdain_ **

 

Marcus' eyes darted around the house nervously as she led them both up the stairs, fingers fiddling nervously with his shirt cuff; he's a far cry from the attempted autocrat who first marched into her kitchen, ready to run herd on them all. He's a force to be reckoned with in his world, but in hers it was painfully obvious he felt all thumbs and entirely conscious of his own uncertainty.  
  
"Marcus." He jerked his head away from the pictures of Jake and Clarke on the dresser, guilty as if she'd caught him pawing through the clothes inside. "Come here." He kissed with none of the self-consciousness dragging his shoulders down, mouth sure on her and hands secure on her waist. Bit by bit the tension keeping him hidden away evaporated, swept away by an infinitely preferable sort of tension. Bellamy moved closer, the heat of his body a caress all its own. "Better?"  
  
"Much." He bumped his nose affectionately against hers and Abby felt the strangest stretching and rearranging sensation in her chest. "But if you don't mind..." He fisted a hand in Bellamy's shirt and pulled him closer, looking surprised at his own daring. "We're still missing something."  
  
Watching him kiss Bellamy was as good as being kissed herself, albeit in different ways. From the outside she can appreciate how for a man determined to present himself as having been polished to cold perfection Marcus applied himself to the task with tender diligence, appealingly unselfconscious or unaware of what it said about the man beneath that mask. One big hand cradled Bellamy’s jaw, tilting his head just so and deepening the kiss, while the other traced slow sideways figure eight patterns on the skin of her back.  
  
They stared silently at each other once Marcus pulled away, Bellamy’s eyes as wide and serious as Marcus’ own.  
  
“I could watch you two do that all day,” Abby hummed happily. She leaned across Marcus’ chest to steal a short kiss of her own from Bellamy, meeting his crooked smile with her own.  
  
“Maybe some other time?” Red still touched the tips of Bellamy’s ears, but some of her confidence seemed to be sinking in. “Because that sounds good, but right now I want to touch both of you.”  
  
On someone else, it would have been a line; a good one, but absolutely a line. The earnest desire in Bellamy’s voice, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners… it was nothing but honesty and Abby felt a delicate, painful fracture bloom in her heart. “If you think I’m going to agree to anything less…”  
  
“I’m in favor, myself.” Marcus coughed, eyes darting between them. “But I’m not sure how that might...work, I suppose.” Abby’s brows furrowed and he hurried to add, “Not the mechanics, Abby, that much I can put together myself without experience. But there’s more to consider than the mechanics.”  
  
“Marcus.” Taking up one of his hands in hers, Abby pressed a kiss to one broad palm. “I’ll tell you what. How about we leave the details for later and get back to what we’d been doing before you got here and this time you can take a more active role.”  
  
‘More’. He mouthed the word, puzzled, but nodded. “All right. I feel like I’m being set up, but I’ll ask the obvious question.”  
  
“What were we doing?” He nodded, and Abby felt satisfaction pop like champagne bubbles in her bloodstream. "Well, I'd just fucked Bellamy when you rang the doorbell." Both men froze in place, barely breathing, and then Marcus groaned and looked at Bellamy with new eyes, breathing ragged and color building in his cheeks.  
  
“Did she?” He directed the question at Bellamy and Abby immediately switched her attention to him, taking in the pleased flush and nod.  
  
“We talked about you.” Bellamy’s eyes widened, shocked at his own daring, but he kept talking and leaned into Marcus, wrapping a hand around his bicep. “About what it would be like, if you were there.”  
  
“And?” The husky timbre was new, a note of growled anticipation that made Abby’s thighs clench together. “What did you decide?” Under the arousal lies something infinitely more breakable, the echoes of a child needing reassurance that they’d been just as kind to him when he wasn’t around to hear the words.  
  
“That it would be better when we didn’t have to pretend.” Bellamy clearly saw that child, too, and Abby pressed a hand to his lower back in encouragement.  
  
“‘When’.” A silly, pleased smile transformed Marcus’ face into something entirely new, and a playful note joined the song. “A little presumptuous of you both.”  
  
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Abby pointed out, and Marcus laughed, louder than she’d ever heard him.  
  
“I am.”  
  
“You could finish the job.” Marcus’ laughter cut short on a little broken sound, and his hand clamped down hard on her waist. Encouraged, Bellamy nodded towards the bed. “I’m still good, you could just fuck me now. We don’t have to wait.”  
  
“He most certainly could not, and you absolutely do.” Abby shook her head, fond smile playing on her lips. Bellamy’s obvious enthusiasm tugged at her heartstrings at the same time it built the fire inside higher but as wonderful as it sounded, Marcus’ cock was hardly comparable to her vibrator, and they hadn’t used anything lasting to ease the way. Some things were best left to the realm of fantasy. “But hold that thought, I’ll be right back.”  
  
The oil was in her medicine cabinet where she left it, and Abby squinted critically at the ingredients before huffing out a breath. It would do, at least.  
  
When she stepped back around the corner the broad expanse of Marcus’ back greeted her, pale like it hadn’t seen open sun in far too long. He’d backed Bellamy up against the dresser at some point and stripped off both their shirts, too impatient to feel skin on skin to wait for her return. Abby stilled, leaning against the wall and taking in the tableau with a small, pleased smile.  
  
They necked like teenagers, a little clumsy and beautifully unselfconscious about it, breathing in loud gusts between kisses. “Do you like that?” Marcus’ hands remained frustratingly hidden between their bodies, but whatever he’d done with them made Bellamy gasp out a yes. “Once she gets back.” He kissed Bellamy again, voice gone husky. “Then I’ll give you so much more, Bellamy. Make you feel so good.”  
  
“You didn’t need to make him wait, Marcus. I said hold the ultimate conclusion to that thought, not the leadup.”  
  
Their heads jerked towards her with flattering speed, identical welcoming smiles bathing her in a warmth of being desired. “I wanted to.” Bellamy’s smile edged into bashful, but a knowing gleam lit his eyes. “I wanted both of you.”  
  
“In that case, I think we’re all wearing far too many clothes.” Abby let her robe fall in a puddle at her feet, stepping out of it and making for the bed as the two men scrambled to do the same and join her, Bellamy helping Marcus with the kind of banked intensity that made Abby think she’d have to gently steer him towards admitting his obvious fascination for stripping them down.  
  
Later. Much, much later. Now, Marcus’ fingers quested between Bellamy’s legs, and nearly identical sounds of pleasure dropped from their mouths as two slid in easily.  
  
“Here, take this.”  
  
Marcus took the bottle from her hand and laid an oddly gentle kiss on her palm after, tongue flickering out to taste her skin. Abby’s heart constricted, distracting her with its fluttering until Bellamy groped for her hand and threaded their fingers together.  
  
“Abby, please. Tell him I’m ready.”  
  
Stroking one hand over Bellamy’s sweaty curls, Abby looked to Marcus. “Well?”  
  
He withdrew his fingers with a soft, wet sound, barely audible under Bellamy’s disappointed groan. Abby soothed him instinctively, murmuring affectionate nonsense as she watched Marcus open the bottle again. The muscles in his abdomen jumped as he rolled a condom down and spread the oil over his cock, too perfunctory to be called stroking himself despite his obvious need.  
  
Bellamy’s hand flexed in hers as Marcus lined himself up and slowly began to push inside, knuckles gone white and face set in pained lines.  
  
Watching them kindled the fire building in her blood higher, and she leaned close to Bellamy to brush noses affectionately. “How does it feel?”  
  
Bellamy’s eyes widened and then snapped shut, exhaling in a shuddering burst. “Good,” He finally gritted out, eyes still screwed shut. “Big.”  
  
“But you’re taking him so well.” Abby stroked his cheek, wiping away the sweat collecting. “Isn’t he, Marcus?”  
  
Marcus nodded mutely, dropping his head and sucking in a fortifying breath before he offered his own praise. “So well. You feel… it’s wonderful, Bellamy.” He paused, hair brushing the back of Bellamy’s neck as he craned his neck to gaze at Abby, making it clear his words were meant for both of them. “So wonderful.”  
  
He rocked his hips and Bellamy rolled his cheek into the mattress, grip bruisingly tight on Abby’s hand as he rolled his hips back into the motion.  
  
They looked like art together, golden skin gone glossy with sweat, their slaps of skin hitting skin and grunts of exertion filling her bedroom as Marcus lost his inhibitions and Bellamy his nerves.  
  
Marcus leaned down close enough for a whispered conference and at Bellamy’s nod eased his knee up the bed, opening his legs wider for Marcus. The change in angle made Bellamy yowl, letting go of Abby’s hand to clutch Marcus’ wrist and beg brokenly for more of the same.  
  
Hand freed Abby slipped it between her legs, rubbing in slow circles to ease the same urge that drove Bellamy to rut shamelessly against the bed, abandoning thrusting back against Marcus to chase his own pleasure.  
  
He came with a choked moan, fingers digging into Marcus’ skin so hard his knuckles go entirely bloodless and Marcus went down onto his elbows, the elegant rolling motion of his hips gone as he jerked out a last few graceless, desperate thrusts and then collapsed on top of Bellamy, covering him like a blanket.  
  
They breathed in tandem, still quiet and connected in the way only _really_ good sex can make linger, and then Marcus sighed regretfully and rolled away to dispose of the condom.  
  
Watching the way his muscles bunch and release as he walked to the little silver can in the corner distracted Abby from Bellamy’s attack. The off-white of the ceiling filled her view as he laid her back, strong hands firm on her thighs as he settled between them and Marcus made his way back to the bed to mold himself to her side, blocking out everything else in her view.  
  
“Can I Abby?” Bellamy nuzzled her inner thigh, kissing the skin sweetly when her hips bucked to chase his mouth.  
  
“If you don’t, I might actually kill yo— _oh_.” Bellamy muffled his laugh in her cunt, lips closing over her clit before Abby finished the sentence. She gasped and clutched at his hair, already worked up enough to enjoy the firm touch. “Bellamy honey, please, just a little bit harder. I’m already so close.”  
  
Chin propped up on her shoulder, Marcus looked down at Bellamy with eyes that burned. “Do it, Bellamy.” Faint traces of awkwardness lingered, but they came through like distant sound through water.  
  
Abby moaned as Bellamy redoubled his efforts at the command, tongue working in quick circles around her sensitive bud as he slipped two fingers inside her to search out her g-spot without being asked, firm pressure just enough to send her sliding over the edge. Her cunt worked in greedy pulses around his fingers as Bellamy nursed her through orgasm, tongue slowing enough to wring the pleasure out to its last drops without tipping into discomfort.  
  
The temptation to let him keep going and slowly work her up to another orgasm beckoned and Abby gave in, losing herself in the slow drag of firm wet pressure against sensitive flesh. Marcus rubbed his cheek into her neck, kissing the red rash left in his wake with worshipful lips.  
  
“You’re so beautiful.” He whispered it into her hair, sounding almost pained by it. “The two of you, you’re so…”  
  
“The _three_ of us.” Abby wove their fingers together, bringing their joined hands down to rest on Bellamy’s curls together. “The three of us,” she repeated tenderly, craning her neck to kiss his forehead as Bellamy obligingly sped up with the increased pressure of two hands urging him on.  
  
She watched the gleam of moisture gather in Marcus’ eyes, only to be blinked away before he agreed, voice solemn like a man taking his vows, “The three of us.”  
  
From between her legs Bellamy mumbled something and the vibrations snapped the thinnest of tethers holding back her second orgasm. Abby felt this one in her toes, a tingling warmth and rush of sensation that made the muscles in her calves bunch and toes flex.  
Bellamy crawled up her body, curling himself around her in a mirror of Marcus on her right side. “I said it, too.”  
  
Abby’s chest went warm and tight, heart pulsing in a rhythm she remembers from a lifetime ago. “I thought you might have.”  
  
He nodded, lips curled in a happy smile, then he looked to Marcus and the smile went wicked. “Even though if you think about it, I _was_ doing all the work.”  
  
Marcus kissed him before Abby could do it herself, licking his lips when he pulled away as if savoring her taste. “And from all appearances, you did a wonderful job.”  
  
_Job_. Abby stole a look at the clock and sighed regretfully. “He really did.”  
  
“But I have my _real_ job to do in ten hours.”  
  
“And you worked a full day.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
Marcus drew into himself a little at their quick exchange, the reminder of a shared history he can’t access starting to repel him like a drop of water off a magnet.  
  
That won’t do. Abby tapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll make breakfast together in the morning, and then you and I can clean up while Bellamy takes the first shower. Sound good?”  
  
Only the beat he needed to collect himself betrayed Marcus’ relief. “It certainly sounds worlds better than the cold cereal options at my apartment.”  
  
“Then it’s decided. Bellamy, could you get the light?”  
  
He rolled away and plunged the room into darkness before cleaving back to her side, hand twining with Marcus’ over her abdomen.  
  
Sleep crept in and stole her away between one breath and the next, safe and held snug between them.  


* * *

  
Morning brought doubt, the light of day revealing what darkness managed to hide. Marcus felt it in the odd prickle at the back of his neck, saw it in the hesitant cast to Bellamy’s face. Last night in bed it had been simple, pared down to the slide of their bodies against each other and how good it felt. The simplicity of pleasure doesn’t provide cover from outside anxieties now.  
  
Abby alone seemed unaffected. She bustled around the kitchen, pulling odds and ends from the fridge and pantry to line them up on the counter with her usual military precision, until a phalanx of ingredients sat assembled and ready for orders.  
  
"Eggs?" She looked up from her army and shook her head, lips tilting in a rueful curve. "Out with it, you two. What’s wrong?"  
  
Marcus looked down at his hands, and then over at Bellamy, who only stared purposefully at his cup of coffee and looked vaguely sick. "It's..." He paused, throat dry. Asking the question meant opening a door to an answer, one that might silence the irrepressible flutter of hope in his heart. "Well. What is this?"  
  
Abby tilted her head, eyes narrowing and pinning him to the spot. A tangible weight lifted when she looked over to Bellamy and held some sort of silent conversation, words hidden in minute twitches of his cheek and the arch of her brows. "What do you want it to be?" His terror at the idea of vocalizing the complicated mess of desires jockeying for position at the head of the pack must have shone through, because she chuckled softly. "All right, I'll ask easier questions. This was lovely, Marcus, but if one night was all you wanted we can go back to work and I'll be exactly as hard to deal with as before. No more and no less."  
  
"And if it wasn’t? If I wanted more?"  
  
Abby's cheeks flushed a happy pink at his answer, and out of the corner of his eye Bellamy's smile made him want to say anything, just to keep them looking at him like that.  
  
"Then we have some breakfast, and we see what happens next."  
  
"Just like that?" Abby's confidence made him _want_ to believe it, half-sheltered from the winds of doubt behind the shield of her conviction, but it felt too impossibly easy to have them both drop in his lap. "Abby... it can't be that simple."  
  
"She's right." Bellamy knocked their knees together below the counter, the tight press of their thighs a reassuring source of warmth. "We want you to stay. You want to stay. What's complicated about that?"  
  
Abby beamed approvingly, then crooked her finger at them. "Now, if that's settled... breakfast?"  
  
An incredulous laugh bubbled up in his chest, and Marcus felt like a man thrust into a new city without a map and only a half-formed idea of how to speak the language; euphoria of discovery tempered by fear of the unknown tugged him in too many directions to do anything but trust Abby and Bellamy and follow the road they laid out. "I _am_ hungry."  
  
"Then we'll eat." Tossing her hair back, Abby held up an egg, hands careful on the speckled brown shell. "I hope you didn't think you were getting out of another cooking lesson."

 

* * *

 

Murphy figured it out—honestly, Bellamy wasn't sure when he figured it out. He'd always been a private guy, collecting pieces of information and using them as bargaining chips or weapons in future skirmishes. He might have figured it out when Bellamy didn't come home that first night, or this morning on the drive to work; with Murphy, there never was any way to tell.  
  
"How long have you and Abby been fucking?"  
  
After sparing a moment to thank God Raven was too close to the speakers to hear a conversation half the length of the kitchen away, Bellamy dragged Murphy the rest of that length. "Jesus Christ, Murphy, the hell is wrong with you?"  
  
"I'm not really sure you're the one who gets to ask that question right now. Being as you’re sleeping with the boss and hiding it from everybody." He paused, and Bellamy felt the rush of air before the blade falls. “Trying to hide it, at least.”  
  
"Oh, fuck you."  
  
"I'll clear it with my girlfriend if you clear it with yours." _Girlfriend_. It sent a little surge of pride through him, and Murphy's face twisted in exaggerated disgust when his pleasure at the label forced its way through his glare. "You got it that bad, huh?"  
  
Bellamy thought about Abby, the way she'd smiled at him across the counter and the warm pressure of Marcus' thigh against his own under the counter. "Worse."  
  
Abby laughed when he related the story later that night in bed, cutting off his earnest promises that he'd warned Murphy to keep his mouth shut or else. "I'm not worried about it."  
  
"...you're not?"  
  
"Bellamy, I _told_ you." She smelled like lemons and cloves, baked into her skin by careful hands. Her hair fell over his face in a glossy curtain when she leaned over and kissed his nose affectionately. "I don't care if people know. For the sake of professionalism we shouldn't flaunt it at work, but I'm not going to treat you like a guilty secret."  
  
Octavia had been impossible, sometimes. High school was rough and Abby had known what the hell to say when he didn't, never seemed to lose her cool when O pushed the boundaries to see if they'd hold. It had petrified him, watching Octavia dare her to throw them out for good, and her steadfast refusal to take the bait had taken his heart from his chest and left it in her keeping.  
  
"Are you sure all of this is real?" For the space of a moment, relief that Marcus begged an investor meeting and ducked out of their cooking lesson swamped him. His lack is a presence of its own, but whatever is building there is new. Fragile. Abby's seen him with Octavia; now that she knows his last secret, there's nothing worth keeping from her. "I've had this dream too many times to be sure."  
  
She kissed his mouth, this time. "Well, then, we'll have to try something you haven't already dreamed."  
  
"I've dreamed a lot."  
  
"Oh, Bellamy." She chuckled and heat built in his gut, cock beginning to stir again between his thighs. "I promise, we'll be able to find something."

 

* * *

  
  
Abby stepped gingerly over the box someone left in the walkway to the dining room, extra conscious of the lingering reminders of Bellamy’s enthusiastic lovemaking.  
  
"Son of a bitch." Raven slapped a hand down against the prep table, rattling the steel. "I know that walk. You got _laid_! Who was it, do I know them? I’d ask how it was, but nobody walks like that because the sex wasn’t any good.”  
  
“I appreciate your restraint.”  
  
“Oh, no, you’re not going to get out that easy, sarcasm has nothing on how much I want to know. _Especially_ now that I know you don’t want to tell me.”  
  
“Really, Raven?”  
  
“One thousand percent really.”  
  
“It wasn’t a serious question.”  
  
“You still asked it, and you’re still avoiding answering _my_ question.”  
  
Gathering every bit of blank, neutral remove possible, Abby shook her head. “It’s no one you know.”  
  
“ _Liar_.” Raven crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes down to intimidating slits. “You couldn’t look me in the eye and say it.”  
  
Admitting defeat is the only road to peace when Raven set her teeth in something. “Fine, you’ve met them. And no, I’m not going to tell you more than that.”  
  
“So I know them, and you won’t tell me, which means it’s somebody who…” Raven stopped, puzzling something through, and then gasped, eyes lit with a surety that promised she’d never let it go now. “Oh my God, no way. No fucking way. You're Bellamy's 'sorry, guys, I have other things to do'. You've been hitting that, right here under all our noses."  
  
Abby swallowed hard. "Raven, I..."  
  
"Win at _life_?"  
  
All at once, the pressure of discovery lifted. It’s been strange not to talk about any of this with anyone but the men involved, with Callie off on a wine tour in Piedmont and out of reach. Abby laughed, relieved. “I wasn’t going to put it that way, but if you insist…”  
  
“Oh, I insist.” Raven leaned back against one of the prep tables to take some weight off her leg, fixing Abby with a curious look. “I gotta say, though, I had my money on the mouthpiece for our corporate overlords. You and Kane were swapping some serious vibes, did that fizzle or what?”  
  
Did it _fizzle_. Abby coughed, cheeks going pink, and gave a helpless little shrug. “If those are my choices, ‘or what’.”  
  
“Wait.” Raven’s eyes went wide, teasing smile washed away. “Both?”  
  
“Both.”  
  
“Like, at once?”  
  
It’s not as if she would believe a lie. “At once.”  
  
Raven seized her shoulders with her solid, baker's hands, shaking them slightly. "Abigail Griffin, you're my hero."  
  
"...thank you, Raven."  
  
“Are you guys going to make out? Because I could grab my phone, take some video. Emori knows a guy, there’s a real market for—”  
  
“Shut up, Murphy.” They chorused the words together, and Murphy snorted from his previously concealed crouch, bag at his feet, whites peeking out from the open zipper.  
  
“Fine, whatever. Just a friendly suggestion. If you change your minds—”  
  
“We won’t,” Raven interrupted.  
  
“Well, if you do I’m gonna be over here setting up my meez.”  
  
Despite his attitude, there was a reason she hired Murphy beyond wanting to help Bellamy’s friend. He held his knives with confident purpose, making short work of an onion, dropping the joke in favor of making sure he had enough time before they opened to sneak outside and share a joint with Monty and his friend Jasper.  
  
Raven let a minute or two lapse once he left to indulge before turning back on Abby with eyes that glowed, unholy zeal for gossip clean in every line of her body. “So, how was it? Full disclosure, Bellamy and I had a one night thing rebound ages ago, and it was… fine, but we were both in weird places and if he scored with you he must have stepped up his game.”  
  
_Fine_. Abby’s throat went dry remembering how much more than fine it was, and Raven hooted when she swallowed hard to clear it.  
  
“That’s a yes on the stepped up game, then. High five, Bellamy.” Her smirk went positively evil. “So, what about Kane? How big _is_ he, exactly? Grower or shower?”  
  
Jackson heralded his entrance with a pained groan accompanied the light thud of his forehead against the wall. “Seriously, Raven? I don’t need to know any of this.”  
  
“What? Don’t be a prude, I wanna know if the dick-walk is false advertising. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”  
  
“I’m not having this conversation.” Despite his stab at disgust Jackson’s protest lacked heat, and his own eyes turned curiously back to Abby.  
  
Abby felt her resolve splutter to a final halt and die. “If either of you tell him I told you this, I’ll fire you.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Raven waved the threat off. “So? Big, or _really_ big?”  
  
Abby thought back to their first night together and smiled, tiny and smug. “Yes.”  
  
Jackson’s eyes widened and Raven’s inevitably obscene response was lost in the crash of the door out to the alley smacking against the wall from Miller’s enthusiastic shove.  
  
“Let’s fuckin’ do this, kids. Stoners, after you.”  
  
“I’m barely buzzed, asshole.” Monty tossed a sloppy salute Abby’s way and made a beeline towards his station. “Hey, boss, Kane’s out there making faces at Jasper. You might want to…”  
  
“Go save them both from themselves?”  
  
“Something like that.”  


 

* * *

  
  
Time spent with Abby and Bellamy felt precious, and passed infinitely faster than it did before he went home to a full bed almost every night. Marcus would have liked to call it simple infatuation or chalk it up to lust and the appeal of that bed, but there have been nights after a grueling dinner rush where they’ve done nothing more than make a few exhausted fumbles towards intimacy before conceding the win to exhaustion.  
  
If it were lust, he wouldn’t treasure those nights and hold them close like he does, enamored with concrete evidence his presence isn’t just some exotic game they’re playing or dependent on their shared fascination with his body.  
  
Time passed too fast with them. One week became two became four and then drew close to five. The deadline for the agreement loomed in his mental calendar mockingly, a reminder of the many masters waiting to be served.  
  
Jaha’s summons came on a Wednesday. He delivered them without fanfare, but Marcus felt dread pool in his gut regardless.  
  
The new splashes of red present throughout the building struck Marcus as gaudy as he walked from the lobby directly back to Jaha’s office, security guard stepping back with a deferential nod at his passing.  
  
The painting behind Jaha’s desk was new as well. It was a still life of a statue—Etruscan, maybe, the spindly clay-red arms of a woman reaching for the sky stark against a white backdrop. It made Marcus’ skin prickle with unwanted awareness.  
  
“Have you spoken with her yet?” Jaha didn’t look up from his laptop.  
  
Marcus felt a headache begin to brew between his eyes. “Sir, I agreed to two months. There are still two and a half weeks to go.” Pushing aside the wave of pain admitting there’s a time limit on the happiness he’s stumbled into brings, he soldiered on, “You know as well as I do Abby won’t like these changes. If I broach the subject before I’ve completed our agreement, she’ll balk.”  
  
“She’ll balk either way. Abby hates feeling managed.”  
  
“All the same, I’ll have more chance to succeed in three weeks.”  
  
“See that you do.” Jaha toyed with a little hunk of blue crystal on his desk and finally met Marcus’ gaze, eyes bright with warning. “Don’t get attached, Marcus.”  
  
“...sir?”  
  
“Your lack of sentiment is one of the reasons you’re such an asset to the company. You should keep that in mind when it comes to your… dealings with Abby.”  
  
The delicate pause turned his blood to slush in his veins. “Sir…”  
  
“What you do in your personal life is none of my business, Marcus. Not unless it affects my bottom line.” Breaking eye contact, he nodded to the door. “I’ll see you in three weeks, Marcus. I expect you to bring me results.”  
  
Swallowing hard, Marcus nodded back; protecting his job and betraying a trust, all in one quick movement of his chin. _Amazing what the slightest gesture can do_ , he thought, and felt sick. “Yes, sir.”  
  
The march back to his car felt like it aged him decades, each step a reminder of the bargain he’d struck and what doing his job might cost him. When his phone buzzed in his pocket, Abby’s happy face filling the lock screen, he tossed it in the passenger seat to ring unattended.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LATE WITH Z E R O STARBUCKS, THE (ALMOST) FINAL CHAPTER IS HERE Brittany, I love you with all the intensity of a very intense thing. Sorry this took so long, O April of mine.

 

 

> _**I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.** _

> _**— Anthony Bourdain** _

 

 

“So, have you met the bitch in the red dress yet?” Raven hitched her good hip up against the prep table, hands busy working her hair back into a tight braid.

Bellamy wrinkled his brow. “The who?”

“She means the new investor.” Jackson emerged from Abby’s office with a cup of coffee clutched in one hand, scrubbing at three days worth of five o’clock shadow with the other. “And not to step on your toes, but as far as I can tell she checks out.” Raven’s snort gave her succinct opinion of that, and he shook his head. “If you have some insight or information I don’t, the floor’s yours. Otherwise ‘I can just tell’ isn’t evidence, you know that.”

“Well that’s too bad, because I’m telling you I can just _tell_.”

“You can just tell what?” Abby grunted a little as she lugged a full bin of potatoes out of the pantry, back bowing under the weight.

 _Jesus_. Raven opened her mouth to answer and Bellamy gave her a little ‘not now’ headshake before taking the bin from Abby and shouldering the weight himself. Everybody in this kitchen owed Abby a hell of a lot more than a job. The least they could all do is keep their worries from her door unless they’re based on something stronger than Raven’s gut feelings.

Raven rolled her eyes, capitulating. “That Jackson hasn’t been laid in so long he’s forgotten how all his bits and pieces work?”

Jackson jostled her lightly in retaliation, but he gave her a grateful smile behind Abby’s back. “I told you that in _confidence_.”

Murphy announced his presence with his usual subtlety. “If you need some action, Emori’s got this friend… _very_ into massage. Also, the totally legit healing power of crystals, but you don’t have to _talk_ to him.”

“Shut up, Murphy,” Jackson and Raven chorused in unison, not bothering to turn and look at him.

He shot an accusatory glare at Bellamy. “Don’t think I don’t know you started that. It’s not as funny as any of you assholes think it is.”

Amusement flooded him and a smile threatened to break free, but Bellamy wrestled it back down. “Pretty sure it’s even funnier, not going to lie to you.”

“Son of a _bitch_.” Miller exited the walk-in and slammed his hand down on the cooktop, loud enough the slap echoed and cut off whatever Murphy was going to say. “Hate to kill the vibe in here, but we’re officially fucked.”

Abby’s head jerked up. “Why?”

“The lobster for the spring salad we were gonna do tomorrow and Saturday is gone.”

“...Gone?” Abby repeated, panic beginning to creep in. “All of it?”

“Every goddamned bit.” Miller’s expression darkened. “I checked and some of the new waitstaff the new investor brought in with her never showed this morning, I say one of them did it.”

A sharp pain exploded in Bellamy’s side, and he looked down to see Raven giving her elbow an extra little prod. “I _told_ you,” she muttered, and Bellamy rolled his eyes. _Let it go. Not right now_ he mouthed, then looked pointedly back at Abby and Miller.

Abby rested her head in one hand and drew in a fortifying breath. “We can deal with who took it later, Miller. Right now, we need to figure out what to do if we don’t have any lobster.”

“Market’s going to be sold out,” Jackson sighed, tugging at his bandana in agitation. “And we pushed this special too hard last week to pull out now.”

“I can break into Costco. Don’t look at me like that, Abby, I’d leave money.” Miller cracked his knuckles. “Been a while, but I know a guy who works in the loading bay. He’d do me a solid and get me in there, at least. I can take care of the rest.”

“How very Système D of you,” Murphy mock-fawned, simpering. “Dave Chang better watch his back.”

“You just gonna be an asshole about mine, or do you got a better idea?” Miller shot back.

“In fact, I do.” Murphy paused for impact. “Emori has lobster right now.”

“Okay.” Abby inhaled deeply, nodding. “Okay. I’ll take it. Miller and Murphy, go talk to Emori. I can’t pay it all upfront, but I’ll empty out petty cash and grab a couple hundred from the ATM. Tell her I’ll get her the rest when I get reimbursed for the stolen lobster.” Bellamy’s hands itched to reach out and comfort her when she pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “And that I owe her a favor, within reason. I’m not letting her use us as a front for anything illegal, Murphy, make that clear.”

“Absolutely no criminal activity on premises. Loud and clear.”

“Come on, dickhead. Let’s go talk to your mobbed up girlfriend.” Miller grabbed Murphy’s sleeve and tugged him towards the door to the alley, shooting Abby a thumbs up on his way.

“She’s not _mobbed up_ , she’s an _entrepreneur_.”

“Fifty-fifty we’re about to go buy our own freaking lobster back, dude. She’s mobbed up.” The hard clang of the door closing swallowed Murphy’s answer as well as it concealed the man stealing up behind Bellamy.

“Do I need to worry about tangential involvement in criminal activity just by being here?” Marcus’ voice was low and amused in his ear, and Bellamy swallowed hard. The last time he heard Marcus sound like that he was nailing him into the mattress, and the memory was a tough one to shake loose. By now it’s Pavlovian: when Marcus sounds like that, Bellamy’s dick goes hard at the same time his heart does a funny little flip in his chest.

It’s not anything he should be indulging at work. He shook his head in a quick negative and tried his best to focus back in on the problem at hand. Judging by the look Raven shot them both and the emphatic eyebrow dance she aimed his way once Marcus stepped away to greet Abby, the lobster chaos that kept everyone’s attention off his response was probably all that saved them from being the thing that blows their cover and forces them to think seriously about what it is exactly they’re doing.

Abby clapped her hands and raised her voice, calling everyone’s attention her way. “All right, we’ve got an hour until we open. Let’s triage and concentrate on tonight while we wait for those two to get back and save tomorrow. Marcus, you’re working under me tonight.”

Raven choked back a laugh. “I _bet_ he is.”

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t think this was genuinely what you meant when you said I’d be under you tonight.”

Abby chuckled. She twisted her fingers inside Marcus and watched him tremble, a wave of red working its way up his chest only to crest at the tips of his ears. “Are you complaining?”

“Not at all,” he bit out hoarsely, head turned into the curve of his elbow. “In fact, quite the opposite.”

Marcus' cock swung heavy between his thighs, hitting one with a sticky slap as she moved him into position. He was a different man with all the starch drained out of him, sprawled pliant and warm across her sheets. Bellamy's hand rubbed gentle circles on his shoulder, eyes still glued to Abby's hand between Marcus’ legs, and Abby leaned in to give him a quick, filthy kiss as a reward.

Then he touched his bruised lips and stared at her like she’d realigned the cosmos and put herself at the very center, need written naked on his face. Abby was helpless against the need to kiss him again, fisting one hand in his hair to position his head just so.

Marcus’ muttered _good Christ_ brought her attention back to him. Sweat sheened his back and thighs, each muscle nearly vibrating with the effort needed to stay still. His cock leaked between his thighs, pre-come dripping down to soak the sheets beneath him. “Shh, it’s all right. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you.” She swept the hand not still slowly fucking him open in a comforting pass the length of his spine, coming to a possessive rest on the curve of his ass, digging her fingers into the taut muscle. “That’s it, show me how much you want me to fuck you." Marcus shuddered and pushed back into her as well as he was able, rolling his forehead against the sheets. "You're doing so well, sweetheart. Does it feel good?"

He whined, muscles seizing, and Bellamy came to his rescue. "She likes to do that." He stroked the sweat soaked hair away from Marcus' temples, and Marcus nuzzled his hand in thanks before he pulled away. "Drive you crazy and then expect you to answer her."

"I've noticed the habit." Marcus rasped the words out, ending on a ragged laugh. "She's a menace."

Abby shook her head, biting back a pleased grin at their newfound harmony without needing to use her as a fulcrum. "You two know I haven't spontaneously lost the power of hearing, right?"

"And she thinks she's funny," Bellamy continued as if she hadn't spoken, hiding his grin in the crook of Marcus' arm.

"I don't know how you put u—" Marcus' last word word snapped off in a muffled yelp as Abby twisted her fingers, unerringly glancing across his prostate.

"You were saying?"

"I've forgotten entirely. Abby, _please_. Please, inside me, I’m _begging_ you."

Her cunt clenched hard around nothing, pleasure so sharp it ached. It took effort to push Marcus to a state of insensibility enduring enough he couldn’t help but ask for what he wanted, and she treasured each moment. She twisted her fingers again and Marcus _sobbed_ , cock jerking between his thighs.

“Abby, I feel like I’m about to explode. Please, _fuck me_.”

“Only because you asked so nicely.” She slid into him in one long push, only stopping when her hips met his ass. The half hour spent driving him insane had done more than push him past his reticence, and they both hissed at the sensation.

“Does it feel good?” Surprised, Abby’s eyes pulled away from the willing give of Marcus’ body around her strap-on and took in Bellamy, bent in half to kiss Marcus. “I love it so much when she fucks me.” This time Abby moaned, and the hot look Bellamy gave her was worth interrupting him. When she only nodded encouragingly, he turned back to Marcus. “Sometimes I think I like it better than fucking her myself.”

“I can see why.” Marcus fisted the edge of a pillow in his hand then slapped his hand down against the mattress. His thighs trembled as he shoved himself harder back against her and the slap of skin on skin filled the bedroom, crowding out everything else. “Jesus, Abby, yes. _Harder_.”

Marcus had haltingly admitted it had been nearly a decade since he’d last been fucked, and Abby found it heartbreakingly easy to see why a man with walls as high as his had been when they’d met would avoid something that so clearly stripped away any pretenses.

She followed his broken commands and fucked him harder to chase away the dark thoughts until he gasped for mercy, “Abby, please. Please, let me come. Please, please, please…” He trailed off into insensibility, mouthing his pleas into the tanned skin of Bellamy’s forearm.

Abby and Bellamy shared a look over his head, and at her nod Bellamy reached between Marcus’ legs to wrap a hand around his cock and jerk him off with blessed expediency. He came on a choked-off howl, frantically shoving his hips back at Abby in a graceless quest to extend the moment.

Marcus collapsed bonelessly on the bed when Abby carefully pulled free, narrowly missing being knocked off the bed when Bellamy launched himself at Abby and yanked at the velcro closures on her hips with shaky hands.

“Bellamy, what—”

He licked a hot, clumsy stripe up her cunt before taking her clit in his mouth and sucking hard. His teeth _just_ grazed the tender flesh between his lips and Abby exploded under him, tripping and falling into an orgasm she hadn’t seen lurking just behind her. He only increased the pressure and she flailed urgently with one hand to grasp his curls and yank, not sure if she meant to urge him on or force him away.

She came again before the first wave could pass entirely. She tightened her hold on his hair enough it must hurt, but Bellamy moaned in approval as pleasure hit her in the belly and knocked her backwards.

A rough chin rubbed against her shoulder. “Keep going, Bellamy.” _Marcus_. Blindly she turned her face towards his, seeking his mouth. His kiss was messy, his lips bruising her own. “Make her come again.”

Bellamy obeyed, mouth working harder between her thighs, and Abby pushed weakly against their combined hold. “Marcus, I can’t.”

“You can.” He nipped at her lower lip and Abby sucked in gasps of air through lungs suddenly pressed half flat. It felt like she might shake apart but Marcus only kissed her until the room started to spin and brought a hand to rest on top of hers, holding Bellamy firmly in place. “Again, Bellamy. Until we decide she’s had enough.”

Bellamy obeyed and Abby sobbed her pleasure into Marcus’ mouth, shattering between them.

 

* * *

 

The lingering ache between his thighs could be mitigated by a careful gait, but as the day wore on Marcus found nothing could help suppress a satisfied smile from breaking free whenever he looked at Abby or Bellamy for longer than a moment. He’d awoken to the fear that he’d crossed some invisible line by assuming the control Abby comes by so naturally, but she’d only given him the sort of smile that promised the only retribution he might face would be as enjoyable as it had been to watch Abby pinned to the spot, unable to do anything but let them take her apart.

“—lobster, those goddamned _thieves _—”__

“I still say I should’ve broken into CostCo—”

Snatches of Abby’s half-whispered conference drifted over and he hastily turned his attention back to the scallions Bellamy set him to chopping. He’d watched all of her staff tear through their much larger piles at speeds that made him winced and wonder how it was they escaped the night with all their digits attached.

His own pile had barely dwindled by half. Marcus glared accusingly down at the green shoots on the cutting board, pushing what little he’d cut further to one side with his knife. When he’d first agreed to her bargain, Abby’s surety he would lag behind felt like an affront. Now it was clear she was right all along, and the reminder he’s the one who agreed to this under false pretenses only intensified his frustration with the stubbornly yet un-chopped garnishes.

“Curl your fingers under.”

Marcus jumped and nearly sliced off a finger. Before turning to meet Raven’s eyes he set the knife down, trying to calm his racing heart. “I’m sorry?”

“Curl your fingers under, thumb under your index. Here, just… like this, okay?” She adjusted his grip herself, tucking his fingers under and then placing the onions between them and the cutting board. “See how that protects you from the blade? You’ll go faster if you’re not worried about losing a digit, and you can push them along with your thumb.”

He tried again and laughed quietly at the new ease of movement. There was a marked lack of snide commentary, and he glanced over to find a surprisingly genuine smile on her face. “If you don’t mind me asking, is there any particular reason you never told me this before now?”

“You never asked.” She smirked. “And you were kind of a dick when you showed up.”

He laughed, reluctantly. “I suppose I was.”

“Yeah, you’ve definitely lightened up since then. Pretty sure we’ve been good for you.” Her dark eyes turned serious, and she fiddled with the lapel of her chef’s coat. Marcus fought not to shift like a nervous child under her stare until she crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her chin out combatively. “Anybody ever tell you flour is flammable?”

The sudden change set him aback, and he fumbled for words. “Not until now, no.”

“Oh yeah. You could set a whole building on fire and gut it out if you had enough flour.”

“...how fascinating.”

“Isn’t it? I’m telling you, that stuff burns hot.” Raven bared her teeth in what might loosely be called a grin, driving the threat home.

Marcus forced a pained smile back, heart in his throat. “Dare I ask how _you_ found that out?” he asked, striving to sound less rattled than he felt.

“I like things that go boom. It was either gonna be bread or bombs and I went with the bread, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still know how to blow shit up.” Marcus nodded jerkily, and she continued, “I just wanted to let you know, because if you hurt Abby or Bellamy I will burn your _life_ down.” She patted him gently on the chest. “I like you, Kane. So far you make them both happy. Just don’t fuck it up.”

Her brace jingled merrily as she strode across the kitchen to join the now boisterous argument about the merits of prosciutto versus bacon between Harper and Miller.

Marcus’ stomach sank down to his toes, and he stared at the hand she’d touched with sightless eyes. It’s not just Abby and Bellamy he’ll hurt, not that she knows it; if he does his job, it’ll be Raven’s life burnt to the ground alongside all her co-workers and his hands on the matches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter later tonight, once i run to the grocery store so i can make dinner like a boring adult.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

 

> _**"Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”** _
> 
> _**— Anthony Bourdain** _

 

When Thelonious called her to his office, Abby didn’t think much of it. He’d been on-site more and more often as the grace period covered by Marcus’ bargain came to a rapid close, but he hadn’t pushed about his new ideas.

“Abby.” Judging by the look on his face, that particular rug was about to be pulled from beneath her feet. “We need to talk.” He inclined his head towards the chair across from his desk and Abby struggled not to mock him for the new affected solemnity. She took a good, long look at him as she sat; he’d changed. The sadness that had lingered in his face since he’d buried Wells was gone, replaced by a steely remove Abby doesn’t recognize.

“What is it, Thelonious? I only have another hour to myself before the staff arrives, and I’d like to get back to work as soon as possible.”

He fiddled with the blue symbols etched into his sleeve and sniffed disapprovingly. His new habit of wearing loose, draped sweaters evoked a monk’s robes, matching the new conviction lit behind his eyes.

“It’s the menu.” He smiled gently, and a sick feeling gathered in her stomach. “Ms. Luz has some ideas.”

“Ms. Luz,” she said sharply, “has already suggested we should be keeping _liquid nitrogen_ on-premises. I’m not sure how seriously I can take her menu suggestions.”

"I never knew you were such a Luddite, Abby." His lips thinned, and he crossed his arms over his chest in disapproval.

"A Lud—oh, come _off_ it, Thelonious, we knew each other long before either of us had five dollar words to throw around. I'm not a Luddite, but that kind of food just isn't what I _do_. You knew that when we started this restaurant together. Why are you trying to change me now?"

"I have a vision." He looked up, staring at a smear of red through the frosted glass separating the kitchen from the dining room. " _We_ have a vision. I want you by my side as I realize that vision, but I'm willing to move forward without you."

"If you have to." The words felt corrosive on her lips and tongue, oozing out like bitter sap.

Thelonious bobbed his head, a regal acknowledgement that drove another knife through her chest. "If I have to."

“So the choice is between cook food I don’t care about or believe in, or…”

“Or I’m afraid you’ll have to find another backer, and another restaurant.”

Hot tears threatened, pricking needle-like at the back of her eyelids. Thelonious didn’t notice, too busy staring at the woman in red patrolling their dining room, and Abby backed out of the room with her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“That sounded intense.”

Abby jumped and pressed a hand to her chest, sighing deeply when Murphy pushed away from the wall a foot away from the office door.

“Murphy.” She tried to smile. “What are you doing here? Your shift doesn’t start for another hour.”

“First I was getting high in the alley. Then I was eavesdropping.”

“ _Murphy_.”

He shrugged, utterly unapologetic. “How the hell else am I supposed to find anything out around here?”

Abby felt a wave of helplessness swamp her. “Murphy, you have to promise me. You can’t tell anyone what you heard, not until I can try to find a way out.”

His expression softened. “Look, tell anybody I said this and I’ll call you a liar, but you’re a good boss. And I like working here. So, if you need me to keep my mouth shut, my mouth is shut until you say it’s not. I won’t even tell Emori.” Unbidden, the tears that threatened in Thelonious’ office welled up and spilled over, running down her cheeks in fat drops. Murphy blanched, eyes flying wide open. “Oh fuck. Jesus Christ, don’t _cry_. Don’t… Jesus.” He gathered her in a clumsy hug, patting her with all the terror a sensible person might apply to a nuclear bomb. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s gonna be okay, you’ll figure it out.” He patted her back again, gaining confidence when she nodded. “Look, I know it’s not really my lane to try and be advice guy, but you need to get away from whatever the hell crawled up Jaha’s ass. Why don’t you take the night off? I’ll text Jackson and tell him something came up and he’s filling in for you on dinner rush.”

Relief suffused her. “ _Thank you_.”

“Whatever, like I said. I don’t wanna look for another job, so… you know, it’s in my best interests to keep you from losing your shit over this. I’m only looking out for number one, when you think about it.” She let out a watery chuckle and he released a long breath then released her with an awkward little squeeze. “See, you’re gonna be fine. Go see Clarke or something, she’s been crawling up all our asses about you lately in the staff group text. We got this, you can plot revenge with your boyfriends tonight.”

 _Boyfriends_. Bellamy had told her Murphy knew about them, but that didn’t explain the plural unless he’d put the rest together, too. “Does _everyone_ know about us?”

“Everybody but Miller.”

Abby pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

“Yeah, really don’t know why you would. Nate _is_ pretty clueless.”

She didn’t have to force her smile this time. It was rewarding to know in his own rough way, Murphy cared as much about their makeshift little family as he did keeping his job. “If you weren’t about to do me a lifetime’s worth of favors, I’d tell him you said that.”

“Go hang out with Clarke. We’ll hold down the fort, I promise.”

When she stopped by the driver’s side of her car to check if Clarke was even home, her phone buzzed before she could bring up her number.

**C.GRIFFIN**

**murphy said you were coming by. should i be worried?**

Abby texted back a short reassurance and slipped her phone in her purse again. She didn’t break the speed limit on her way to campus, but it was a near thing. As reality set in so did sadness; somehow, Murphy had known her daughter’s presence was the only one she would want when it did. She’d owe him that raise, provided she still had a restaurant in a week.

Clarke didn’t say anything when she saw Abby’s face, just patted the bed beside her and opened her arms. “Did something happen?”

Abby shook her head. “There might be some trouble at the restaurant, but we can talk about it later. Right now, I’d rather talk about you.”

Clarke bobbed her head, an oddly nervous little movement. “Sure. Or we could talk about you, in a _non_ -work related capacity. Like, say, how your social life is going.”

“Social life?” Clarke wiggled her eyebrows. “Oh, _social_ life. Well, it’s…” She inhaled, then her attention sharpened. By now she knew all too well her daughter’s overly innocent expression promised she was anything but. “Why do you ask?”

“I was hoping you might just say it, so I wouldn’t have to.”

“Clarke, honey, I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I mean, I know you’re sleeping with Bellamy.”

Abby’s heart stopped for a moment. “And are you... okay with that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“I promise. I mean, it’s definitely weird that _you’re_ dating Bellamy, but it’s kind of not weird he’s dating you. You guys are dating, right?” Abby nodded, and Clarke shrugged as if to say _then what were you worried about?_. “Okay, good, because he’s had a crush on you forever, mom. Everybody knew.”

“Well, I didn’t.” A terrible, inevitable thought occurred to her. “You never mentioned _how_ it is you know about us?”

“Funny story, really.” Clarke coughed. “I found his underwear behind a potted plant in the living room.”

Stricken to her core with embarrassment, Abby could only gawk at her. “How… how did you know they were his?”

“Because I didn’t find them so much as Octavia and I found them together, and she recognized them.”

 _Octavia_. Abby closed her eyes briefly and braced herself. “Is she all right with this?”

“She’s on Team This Is Weird with me, but I think you’re basically the only person she would ever approve of for him. Neither of us want to hear the details, _ever_ , but we’re happy if you guys are happy.”

Not being entirely honest felt like an affront to the moment. “In that case…” She paused to find the words.

Clarke put her out of her mercy. “You guys are dating somebody else too?”

“Okay, how do you know _that_?”

“We found more than one pair of underwear, and O didn’t recognize the other guy’s.”

“So are you… okay with that, too?”

“I want to meet him before I make the final call, but… if you like him, and he makes you happy, I think I’ll like him too.”

Abby struggled not to cry and pulled Clarke back into her arms. “As strange as it is to talk about this kind of thing with you, I’m glad you know.”

“Me too. I love you, mom.”

“I love you, too.” No matter what else may fall apart, _this_ is constant. Abby held Clarke tighter and took comfort in the best thing she’d ever done.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy frowned down at his phone.

“Everything all right?” Marcus laid a hand on his forearm and Bellamy let the pleasure even that simple touch gave him fill his face. Unlike Abby—so sure of herself and her place in the world—in Marcus Bellamy sees a familiar need to hear again and again that this isn’t some wonderful dream he’ll shatter if he breathes wrong.

“Yeah, Octavia texted me a bunch of weird emojis. I was trying to decipher them, but I think it might just be a butt text.”

“Read them out, I’ll see if I can’t help.”

“You speak emoji?” Bellamy grinned, charmed when Marcus made a face and shook his head.

“Not hardly, but I do like puzzles.”

“Okay, then.” Bellamy cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I’ve got right arrow, guy’s face, two eggplants and a peach, red x purple heart then five more eggplants, one of those camels with two humps, the little chef’s hat lady, sheet music, then a barf face and a bunch of blonde people, another red x purple heart combo, a yelling head, and then like… it’s got to be at least forty more barfing faces.”

Marcus paused. “...you know, I can’t even begin to try and solve that.”

“Butt text it is. You want something to drink while we wait for Abby? She said she was on her way around the same time we left, I don’t know how much longer she’ll be.” The sound of the front door answered that question. He raised his voice to call out to her, “Abby, that you? We’re in here.”

“Be right there.” He exchanged a concerned look with Marcus when the muted tone of her voice barely carried across the foyer. “Sorry I’m late.” She stripped off her coat and threw it with uncharacteristic force at the ottoman in the corner, then dropped her purse on top with a thud. “It’s just been a really, really terrible day.”

She looked small. Abby so rarely shrunk down to the size of her own body that Bellamy felt alarm course through him immediately. Beside him, Marcus seemed to share the feeling, because he stood up with an impatient scrape of his chair along the floor.

“Abby, what happened?” Bellamy reached for her and she shook her head.

“I hate to be mysterious, but can I take a shower before I tackle explaining why I’m late? It’s been a really long day.”

“Of course,” Marcus soothed her, rubbing a tentative hand up and down her back.

Bellamy nodded. “Come on, let’s take a shower. We’ll talk when you feel a little better.”

“That sounds wonderful,” she sighed, and everything in Bellamy ached with the need to give her ease. They stripped her carefully and led her into the shower, only undressing each other once she was under the spray.

Ignoring his growing erection, Bellamy knelt before her while Marcus started to wash her hair. She smelled like sweat and soap and Abby, but under it all was a bitter tang of defeat. Determined to wash it away, he rolled his face against the front of her upper thighs in mute appeal. She adjusted her stance to let him fit between them, leaning back against Marcus for balance. He nuzzled the soft skin between her thigh and groin, moaning his approval when she grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged impatiently.

He rubbed his cheek against her and the slight stubble where her pubic hair hair was finally growing back scraped over his face. Marcus had haltingly asked her if she’d let him do it for her. He’d hidden his shaking hands under the table until she agreed, but Bellamy had seen them.

He shuddered, remembering that night and the gleaming straight razor in his hands, the gentle command in Marcus’ eyes as he told Bellamy to hold her legs open and keep her from moving suddenly and hurting herself.

When he moaned, Abby pressed his head more firmly between her thighs and Marcus anchored them both against the wall. He touched Bellamy’s lower back, big hand warm and supportive. “That’s it,” he murmured. “You’re making her feel so good, Bellamy. Eat her pretty cunt.” Neither of them are as comfortable speaking during sex as Abby, but Marcus had taken to it much faster than he had. “Does she taste good?” He stroked a hand over Abby’s cunt, thumb swiping at the edge of Bellamy’s mouth. “I’ll have to get my razor on this again before long. She’ll rub you a bit raw, as it is, but I don’t know that you’ll mind that. Then you can wear her on your face tomorrow.”

Bellamy’s world spun as he went dizzy with arousal.

“Good _god_ , Marcus,” Abby echoed his thoughts.

Marcus’ hand tightened on Bellamy’s thigh and he cleared his throat nervously. “Too much?”

Abby shook her head, twisting to press a kiss to Marcus’ shoulder. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Bellamy moaned in agreement and nodded vigorously, making Abby jerk and testing the strength of Marcus’ hold on them both.

“Right.” His grip on Bellamy’s shoulder slid up further until he laid a hand over the back of his neck; not squeezing, just gently holding him as his thumb rested tantalizingly close to his rabbiting pulse. “Then get back to it, Bellamy, but she doesn’t get to come yet. Not until she’s ready.”

“And who determines when I’m ready?” Abby’s voice sounded like an invitation.

Marcus took it. “ _I_ do. Bellamy, I want you to take her to the edge and then stop.”

Bellamy acquitted himself with doubled fervor, lapping at Abby’s cunt in broad, messy strokes before taking her clit gently between his teeth and sucking, hard then gentle and then hard again until she squirmed restlessly between them.

“Oh god, please don’t listen to him.” She clutched at his head with desperate hands, petting his hair and the sides of his face. “Make me come, baby, please, I’m so close. Just a little bit more, Bellamy, you’re exactly what I need.” Her thigh muscles trembled finely. “Oh god, right there, I love it, love you, just a little more… _goddammit_.”

She wailed plaintively when he gentled his mouth, and Marcus clucked sympathetically. “Shh, I know. Soon.”

 _Love it. Love you_. Bellamy barely heard them; barely dared to breathe.

In the morning he’d do his best to help her fight or withstand whatever it is that had her looking so hopeless and hope he could scrape together the courage to ask if she’d meant it when she said she loved him. For now, he could make her forget; make her feel _good_.

“Bellamy, she’s still thinking too much.” Marcus called his attention back to the moment. “Let’s see what we can do to help with that.”

Bellamy circled her asshole with one finger, silently asking for permission. Abby scratched at the back of his head with her fingertips and he slowly pushed the tip inside. Abby gasped, the sound bouncing off tile and gathering breath of its own.

“What did he do to you, Abby?” Marcus nuzzled her neck. “Come on, now, you’ve made us both say it before. You can do it.”

“He’s fingering my ass.” Her combative tone was ruined when Bellamy slid his finger in further, up to the first knuckle. She whined, high and loud. “Oh god, yes. Bellamy, that’s so good.” Her head lolled back to rest on Marcus’ shoulder. “I can take more.”

Instinctively, Bellamy looked up at Marcus for permission. He nodded. “Be careful with her, but give her what she wants. _Slowly_ , Bellamy.”

He worked his finger into her in gentle, cautious pushes, ignoring her commands and following Marcus’ direction. Bellamy stared at the way her body swallowed him up, lust pooling heavy and metallic on the back of his tongue.

“Can you take another, Abby?” She nodded breathlessly and Marcus squeezed the back of Bellamy’s neck. “Another, then. And fuck her cunt with your other hand, I’ll take her weight.” Bellamy paused when she tightened around him and Marcus kissed her neck drawing her attention back to him. “We’ll try this again, later, but with Bellamy in your ass and me snug right… _here_.” He dipped one forefinger inside her alongside Bellamy’s, fucking her cunt in slow pulses. “We’ll fill every bit of you.” She sobbed and relaxed, allowing both Bellamy’s fingers to fill her up to the knuckles. “Good?”

“So good. Please, let me come.”

“Soon.” Marcus pulled his fingers free and brought them up to her lips. “Suck them.” Bellamy had to look away when she did, trembling wracking his own muscles now. “Or maybe this time I’ll spend hours working _you_ open on my fingers so you can take me.” He pulled his fingers from her mouth with a wet pop and traced the skin stretched tight around Bellamy’s fingers. “Bring her to the edge again, Bellamy.”

“No, Marcus, _please_. Tell him to make me come, I’m ready. I’ll do anything.” There was no command left in her, only need.

When Marcus only shook his head, Bellamy felt like begging himself. “ _I_ say when you come, remember?”

When he finally deemed her ready Abby had abandoned words and hung lax in his grip, tears mixing with the mist from the shower. Marcus dropped a hand to the back of Bellamy’s neck and squeezed, leaning on the grip until Bellamy felt boxed in by them on all sides and utterly drunk on it. “Do it, Bellamy. Fuck her with your fingers and suck at her bare little cunt until she drips down your face.”

He barely heard Abby’s gut-wrenched cried, too focused on the salt-sharp scent of her cunt and her hands on his head and the way Marcus feels pressed close to his side.

“That’s enough. Don’t let the water hit your face,” Marcus ordered him gruffly when she pushed at them with trembling hands.

His dick jerked, slapping against his stomach. Silently he backed out of the halo of warmth, mouth scant inches from Marcus’ big hands. They watched in silence as Abby finished rinsing off and opened the shower door. She paused, looking back at them both with fond eyes. “Well? You two go ahead and finish up, we have to talk after and I doubt anyone will be in the mood then.”

Marcus yanked him up and they kissed desperately, too far gone for words. When Marcus pulled away and licked a stripe up Bellamy’s face he shuddered and came untouched, moaning when Marcus pulled him close and used his hip to thrust in uncoordinated bursts and chase his own orgasm.

Bellamy tugged Kane back into the spray and they rinsed off in companionable silence, each man’s mind set on the woman waiting for them in bed.

She patted the bed to each side of her when they emerged from the bathroom and Bellamy slid under the sheets on her right as Marcus did the same on her left, curling around her smaller body in unspoken, protective agreement. Abby sighed happily at the feel of skin on skin, shifting position slightly when her damp braid started to soak through her shirt. “Before I start… I know this is a lot to ask, but I—I need you to listen to this as the men I'm with, not my employee or the man overseeing things for my employer."

Bellamy held her tighter. “Of course, Abby.”

“Of course,” Marcus repeated. “Love, what happened?” She sniffled wetly. "I spoke to Thelonious, and I don't know how long I can keep working there. It's his restaurant, not mine. At a certain point, he can do whatever he wants with it because I don’t have the money to buy it from him."

The threat to his job came and went, buried by the anguish in her voice. “Shhh.” He kissed her forehead. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Marcus stared at the ceiling as Bellamy and Abby slept. Dread gnawed at his thoughts, making sleep impossible. God _damn_ Thelonious for this, for forcing his hand when Marcus has no idea yet how to play it.

When the first fingers of dawn inched past the horizon, he eased out of bed. Bellamy murmured his discontent and burrowed closer to Abby, seeking her warmth. Marcus watched them long enough to burn the image in his mind, searing it so deep into each neuron they’d have to cut parts of him out before he’d forget them.

After today, he may never get to see it outside his memories again.

He dressed silently and kissed them both goodbye, barely more than a whisper of his lips across Bellamy’s curls and Abby’s outstretched hand.

The moment had the feel of an avalanche gathering speed at his back, its cold wind nipping at his heels and spurring him on faster. He left a short note on the kitchen table and locked Abby’s front door behind him, only turning on his phone when he pulled away from the curb and set a course for Jaha’s newly remodeled brownstone office.

“Ms. Luz? It’s Marcus Kane. Yes, I know it’s early. I have an update on my progress. If you could meet me at Thelonious’ office in an hour… Wonderful. See you then.”

 

* * *

 

Marcus’ note was barely a goodbye, much less an explanation, but between the looming staff meeting and Bellamy’s silence Abby could only spare a passing worry.

“You said you loved me last night,” he burst out halfway between home and Arkadia.

Abby stole a glance at him. “I did, yes.” The doubt flashed clear as day across his features and Abby let go of the wheel with one hand to yank at his sleeve. “Because I _do_.”

His face went momentarily slack. “Oh.” A bashful smile creased his cheeks, and Abby wished they had the time to stop so she could kiss him for it. “I love you, too.” His forehead wrinkled. “What about Marcus? Because…” He inhaled. “What if I love him too?”

Bless these men.

Abby smiled ruefully. “Then we’re both in luck so long as he loves us back.”

The full staff had already gathered when they arrived. Miller’s eyes bugged out and he started started to say something when he noticed the lovebites on Bellamy’s neck, but Raven slapped his chest and cut him off. “Abby, what’s wrong?”

“Thelonious wants to change the direction of the restaurant, with or without me.” The room exploded and Abby shouted them down, clapping her hands sharply. “I told him I wanted to buy him out, but I don’t have the money to meet his offer. I’m going to try and negotiate, but I think we might have to accept that what happens to Arkadia isn’t in our control anymore.”

“Yes, it is.” Marcus stepped out of the corner and cleared his throat, calling the full weight of the room’s attention his way. “Because you’re going to buy it.”

Abby’s heart fell. “Marcus, that’s sweet, but I already thought of that, and I—”

“Don’t have the money? You’re half right.” He gestures behind him. “I just came from Thelonious’ office. I informed him you’d found an investor willing to cover anything else needed to reach an acceptable number. He’s having his lawyer draw up the papers now.”

“An investor?” She repeated, eyes wide.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Raven hooted. “He’s the investor. Kane saved the day.”

“I did what I could to make up for a lie.” He stared down at her, regret written in every feature. “I lied to you, Abby, from the moment we met.”

Her throat tightened with anticipation of the worst. “Tell me, Marcus.”

“When I first came here, I was only supposed to convince you to just accept the menu changes. I had no intention of honoring the terms of our bargain, regardless of what you did.”

A laugh bubbled up in her chest. The silly, _delightful_ man thought they hadn’t known. Relief was a heady drug, washing away the last of her worries. “Oh, Marcus. I love you, I do, but is that _all_?”

He looked pained. “You don’t understand. If you did, you wouldn’t say you… say that.”

Say she loved him, he obviously meant. She reached out to take his hand back, both of her own barely covering his larger palm. “I would, because I do. Honey, we always knew.”

“Even _Miller_ figured that one out,” Murphy drawled.

“Shut up, asshole.”

Abby ignored their tussle, using her grip on Marcus’ hand to pull him in closer. “Everybody but Bellamy, go home. Take the day off and come back tomorrow morning, we can talk business then.”

“All right then, everybody, you heard the lady. The taco truck on fourth’s serving mezcal now, let’s head that way.” Raven herded the group towards the door, stopping just short of leaving herself to wink at Abby. “My _hero_. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Goodbye, Raven.”

“Have fun, Abby!” Harper called from over her shoulder.

“Yeah, get some!” Miller followed up, and Raven flashed Abby a thumbs up before following them out and muffling their cheerful noise. Grinning, Abby turned back to the men she’d never expected to find at her side at the end of the story.

“So… sex in my office?” She bit her lip, looking at them both from beneath lowered lashed. “I have condoms this time, and Marcus can do more than listen. We could try what you talked about in the shower...” The rest of her words disappeared in a burst of delighted laughter when Bellamy swept her up in his arms and carried her to the office, Marcus following close behind.

Still laughing, Abby clung to them both and let herself fall, confident they’d be there to catch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T-T-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS.


End file.
